The Birthday Surprise Syndrome
by ChandaK562
Summary: It's Zed's birthday, and the MIB is planning a surprise party for him, but the surprise might be if all of the agents live through the day. Based on the animated series.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey, Elle, is this all of the ice cream that we have for the party?" Jay asked as he looked over from where he was getting things out of the freezer, and pulled out two gallons. I don't think it's going to be enough."

"Oh, great." Elle grumbled. She knew she should have locked down the kitchenette when she had seen Frank the Pug earlier. She looked down at her list and sighed, adding another thing to be done. "Just put it on the table to thaw a bit. I'll go and find someone to make an ice cream run."

"There you are." she said when she finally tracked down her partner a bit latter. "Why aren't you helping get ready for the party?"

"It's supposed to be a surprise, isn't it? I don't think Zed's going to be very surprised if he looks out of his office and sees everyone scurrying around with balloons and streamers, and that cake is going to be a dead give-away. I thought I would stay out of the way, make it more of a surprise." X chuckled.

"You just don't want to help us out is all." Elle said. "But I've got something I need you to do now. Frank demolished the ice cream we had for Zed's birthday. I need you to run out and get more. He's a list."

"What? You want me to go and lag all of this back?" X looked at the number of items on the list in shock. "I'll end up with frostbite!"

"You won't if you're quick about it. Now get moving, you're the only agent who actually isn't doing something to help with the party today."

"All right, all right." X said after a moment. Normally he would have given Elle a hard time for at least twenty more minutes before agreeing, but the way the little blonde was looking, he had a feeling that twenty minutes would result in him loosing his ears. "Just don't start that cake without me. For something made on this planet, it actually looked pretty good."

"Thank you, X." Elle sighed and then did something that she didn't think she ever would. "I'm sorry I've been going around snapping like this. It's just that everyone wants things to be perfect for Zed. The poor man never gets a chance to enjoy himself. He deserves this party."

"I know, Little ears, and you have my word, I'll be on my best behavior." X told her. "I'll even go and gather the ice cream for you without causing any trouble with the incompetent humans that I'm sure that will be behind the counter down at the supermarket."

"Thank you, X." Elle said. She wasn't going to argue about the incompetent remark. She had been forced to visit that supermarket all too often while getting party supplies together to disagree with X. "And I promise, we aren't going to start the party without you."

"See that you don't. I don't want to miss that cake." X said as he turned and headed for the garage and the SUV. He just hoped the vehicle was big enough to lag all of the ice cream on Elle's list home.

"Just perfect." X grumbled as he parked in the last row. All of the good parking spots were taken, and the store was packed with people, that he was sure waited until they knew he was coming to drop in. He would probably end up stuck in line forever, behind people who needed a price check on every item, people who changed their mind at the last second, and people with crying babies. Maybe he could convince the clerk in the ten items or less line that a massive purchase of ice cream should count for only one item?

He had just stepped out of the vehicle when the back door popped open, and four figures came spilling out.

"Worms?" It had to be them. There was no one else that size, although he couldn't say for sure because of the human suits that they were wearing, those of four human children. "What are you doing here? And where did you get those human suits?" Zed had been firm so far in his refusal to issue human suits to the worms, citing the danger that having them loose on the streets would pose to Starbucks.

"We got them from Agent V down in costumes. She didn't mind. She was working, getting everyone's good suits all ready for the party." one worm said.

"You mean that you waiting until her back was turned, and ran off with four human suits." X grumbled. "Well, I hope you know that I am not driving you by the nearest Starbucks. I know about the trouble the four of you caused, when you tricked Jay into taking you there. The neuralyzer couldn't take away that sort of horror from those poor people."

"We just wanted some joe. What's wrong with that?"

"But we didn't want to go to Starbucks. We came to help with the ice cream."

"Yeah, Elle left off the best flavor!"

"Mocha Java Jive!"

"No, Crunchy Coffee Bits!"

"You have no taste! Everyone knows that Sumatra Supreme rules!"

"Who cares? We can fit them all in!" the fourth worm said as he came hurrying back lagging a cart that X had a feeling was used for moving groceries in from the delivery truck.

"Worms, get back here!" X shouted as they took off for the store. "There's a list!"

"That list is just a suggestion. Besides, are you going to let Elle boss you around?"

"With the temper she's in? I'm attached to my ears, thank you very much." X grumbled as he hurried after them. Did this store have an aisle with pet supplies? Maybe he could invest in four leashes to get the worms under control.

"Elle?" X called as he pulled into the garage nearly two hours later. With the lines, and then the need to drag the worms out of the coffee aisle while there was still java for the rest of the shoppers, and money in the MIB budget, it had taken X that long to make it back to headquarters. He was surprised that Elle wasn't waiting, ready to chew him out for being late with the ice cream. And he didn't want to think about what she would say when she saw all of the flavors that weren't on her list.

"I got your ice cream, and your coffee." X grumbled as he let the worms out of the back and thrust a bag at each of them. "The least that you can do is help me get all of this down to the party. He was already late. It was supposed to have started an hour ago. "Leave the coffee here. You can come back for it later."

"Party? Do you think that Zed will open up his personal stash?" one of the worms speculated.

"Java!"

"Hey, be careful!" X shouted as the four raced off, before shaking his head and starting after them slowly. It would serve them right if they ran into someone and spent the party with Zealtor, getting their antannae straightened out from a crash.

X had just reached the main floor when he heard a wormy sounding gasp, and a second later, the four came racing back.

"X! X, it's a disaster! Come on! You've got to see!"

"What? Did U find the karoke machine?" X asked, shrugging the worms off and heading for the main room anyway, to see what had them so excited. If U was trying singing, he was going to have to arrange for a little accident for the annoying agent. All of the others, at least those with functional ears would thank him for it.

"Elle, I got the ice cream." X called as he came in, only to have the bags he was carrying slip from his fingers as he spotted what had alarmed the worms so. The floor was covered in a sea of black bodies, every agent in headquarters was lying collapsed and unconscious on the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

"Elle?"  X looked frantically around the room for his partner before he spotted her, a crumpled blonde heap on the floor, wedged in between a paper pusher, and a table.

"Elle?"  He hurried over to the little human's side, and started to pull her free, shaking his head as he spotted what was sitting on the table, the cake that she had obviously been eating, and then another large slice that he guessed she had saved for him.  "Thanks for the thought, but I think I'll pass."  At least she was moaning, though, as he moved her.  Surely that was a good sign.

"Elle?  Come on, Little Ears, time to wake up."  As he shook the little human a bit, trying to wake her, he looked around the room.  His first thought was to get Elle down to the lab for help, but he wasn't sure what good that would do.  He could see Zealtor crumpled in a corner, moaning and twitching slightly.

"The four of you drop the coffee and get moving.  There has to be someone in here that isn't sick!  Surely Elle missed a paper pusher somewhere when she was alerting everyone about this."  X called to the worms before turning his focus back to his partner.  "Elle?  Come on, open those beedy little eyes now.  Elle?"

This wasn't good.  The little human was deathly pale, shaking slightly and as X tried to move her to make her a bit more comfortable, he could feel that she was already ice cold.  "Elle?"

Before X could do anything else, or could give in to his first reaction to start screaming, which still seemed to be a pretty good one, since he was stuck with who knows how many sick humans, he heard a beep.

"There you are."  His mother Zoe said as soon as he pulled his communicator out and turned it on.  "Come and wish your aunt a happy birthday.  We're having to have the party early, because that hospital where your cousin works is making her pull a triple shift again."

"Mom, don't mention birthdays."  X moaned as he looked at the communicator and then around the room again.  There was Zed, crumpled up by Kay and Jay.  Maybe they ought to just give him the day off and skip the party next year?  That is, if the food poisoning that was his gift this year didn't finish off the human.

"Son, what's going on there?  What's that noise that I'm hearing in the background?"

"You probably don't want to know."  X said as he looked over just in time to see U being violently sick before collapsing in a twitching heap again.  What in the world did the cafeteria agents do to poison everyone like this?  "Mom, I really can't talk right now.  Everyone's sick."

"What?  What do you mean everyone's sick?"

"I mean just what I said.  They're all sick.  Every agent in the building, unless those worms manage to find someone Elle forgot to invite to Zed's birthday party.  They're all on the floor, twitching and throwing up!"  X said as he waved the communicator around so that his mother could see what he was facing.  "The cake must have been bad!"

"Oh, my goodness!  Stay right there!  I'll get your cousin."  Zoe said as she put the communicator down and hurried off through the crowd of Jeedangians filling her living room in search of her niece.  "Zara, get in here!  Your cousin needs help!"

X sighed as she waited for his mother to come back.  She might be right, though.  Maybe Zara could help.  She dealt with disasters all the time.  Surely one of those disasters had been a mass outbreak of food poisoning.  How in the world did this happen?  Everyone was passed out, even the twins, drapped over their monitor console.  And what was he supposed to do if a transport full of tourists wanted to land?

"X, what's going on?"  his younger cousin Zara said as she appeared on the communicator.  "Aunt Zoe said that all of your little human friends are sick?"

"They've got food poisoning, the lot of them.  Take a look for yourself."  X said as he held the communicator so that Zara could see at least Elle.  "You like disasters, right?  Surely you have some idea what to do about something like this.  They're all just lying there, twitching and throwing up!"

"I don't like disasters.  I just happen to be good at handling disasters.  How in the world did it happen?"

"The cafeteria agents must have done something wrong with Zed's birthday cake.  I said we should give him a tie or the day off, but Elle just had to go with the party that Agent Jay suggested, and now look at what happened.  Tell me that you found someone else."  X called as the worms came hurrying back in.

"Not a soul."

"What are we going to do?"

"Make coffee?"

"No coffee!  Get over here and help me!"  Although X wasn't sure just yet what help he actually could expect from the worms.  "Zara, do something!  I'm the only one here on my feet except for four worms!  What do I do?"

"There isn't anyone there with medical training?"  Zara knew her cousin ought to know a bit about first aid from his time with their planet's peacekeepers, and then with the MIB, but she was sure that didn't cover mass food poisoning.

"One of our doctors is sick, and even when he's well, half of the time everyone thinks he's insane, and as for the other one, just take a look."  X said as he waved the device at Elle again.  "Zara, please, what do I do?  They're all like that."

"First off, calm down."  Zara told him.  "If it's food poisoning, given some time, it ought to run its course.  Why aren't you sick too?"

"I was on an ice cream run, and then dragging the worms out of the coffee aisle.  Run it's course?  How long do I have to wait for that to happen?"

"Wait, this happened while you were at the store?  How long were you gone?"

"A couple of hours.  Have you ever tried shopping with worms, and I couldn't just lock them in the car.  They snatched a bunch of human suits that made them look like kids.  I would have got pulled in for child abuse or something."

"Okay.  Do you have any clue when they started eating the cake?  Are you sure it was the cake?"

"There isn't anything else that it could be."  X said as he looked around the room.  He doubted that the bowls of chips, crackers and nuts were leading causes of food poisoning.  I guess that Elle could have held them off for a bit, waiting for me to get back, but the party was supposed to start an hour ago."

"Okay, X, we have a little problem then.  If they're that sick after less than an hour, that's not food poisoning that you're dealing with.  You're looking at a real poison.  Someone just tried to kill all of those poor humans, and if they don't get help fast, whoever did it might end up suceeding."


	3. Chapter 3

"What?  You mean someone deliberately poisoned them?"  X looked at his cousin, eyes wide with shock.  Food poisoning was bad enough, even if it meant he would have a batch of sick agents on his hands for who knows how long, but if someone deliberately tried to poison them, no only did he have sick agents that were now in danger of death, but he had someone out there who was willing to kill hundreds of people, and who might drop in at any moment, thinking the MIB was out of the way.  "Some of the agents down in the cafeteria have never seemed to stable to me.  I'm sure that they could come up with who knows how many ways to ruin food and make everyone sick.  This HAS to be food poisoning!"

"Food poisoning doesn't hit that fast, and aren't there aliens that work for the MIB?  Can you wave that around and let me see everyone?"

X held the communicator up and slowly scanned his room for his cousin.

"I'm sorry, but that's not food poisoning.  Those big aliens by the monitors?  Something that would make that many humans sick wouldn't even bother them.  Someone had to have put a toxin into the food."

"Well, what in the world am I supposed to do about it?"  X demanded.  "Our medical staff's sick!  Everyone is sick!  I have four worms here for assistance!  Do you know how much assistance you can get from worms?"

"Calm down.  Calm down."  Zara said, although she wasn't feeling the calmest herself, especially since more relatives were wandering over, drawn by her cousin's panicked voice on the communicator.  "Show me that little human again.  Maybe I can walk you though something.  Are you sure hat all of them are still alive?"

"You mean some of them might be dead?"X shouted.  "Worms, get over here!"  What in the world was he going to do if agents were dead?  At least his partner wasn't dead, though.  That was one thing.  He could hear her moaning.  "Take half of the room."  he ordered the worms, make sure that they're all still alive."

"How are we supposed to do that?"

Just perfect.  He didn't have time to give medical advice to the worms.  "Shake them or something.  If they moan, it counts as alive."  X said as he hurried over to the crumpled trio of Jay, Kay and Zed.  At least he was pretty sure that they weren't dead,  Kay and Zed were both twitching, and Jay was letting out an occasional moan.  "What do I do if they're all alive?  I can't get them all to the lab."

"Just keep them where they are for the moment, and try to keep them still."  Zara said as she watched X, moving from agent to agent.  Oh, this wasn't good.  The way those poor humans looked, this couldn't be food poisoning.  They were too sick, way too fast.  "Do you think you can get them on their sides, in case they start throwing up again?"

"Their sides.  Worms!"  X shouted for them again."

"What?  No one dead over here."

"Lots and lots of moaning though."

"And throwing up.  You should see Agent U."

"I would prefer not to."  X said.  "My cousin says that they need to be on their sides, though.  Surely the four of you can manage to move a human that much if you all work together."

"Sure we could.  At least I think we could?"

"But why?

"Never mind the whys.  Just do what my cousin says.  She knows more about this than any of us do.  Elle?"  X said as he hurried over to his partner again and dropped to the ground beside her, reaching out and carefully moving the shaking human onto her side.  "Come on, Little Ears.  Open your eyes.  Don't you want to yell at me for something?  I was late getting back with the ice cream.  And I let the worms mess up your nice, neat list.  Elle?  Zara, do something!  She ought to be taking my ears off right about now.  You should have seen how obsessed she's been with her little list for the last few days!"

"Okay, just hold the comm closer so I can get a look, okay?  Are they all like that?"

"More or less.  Zara, please, you've got to tell me what to do."  X begged.  It seemed like the agents were getting worse right in front of him.  He reached out, rubbing his partner's ice cold hands, not even thinking that his entire family could probably see.  "Zara, she's freezing!"

"That's not good."  Zara said as she frantically thought of what she could tell her cousin.  Whatever those poor agents had been dosed with, it had to be compromising their circulation.  Can you get into the lab?  Maybe if you can get down there, I can show you how to figure out what the poison is, anyway.  If we can do that, I can always call poison control and beg them for advice as to how to treat it if I have to."

"The lab?  Should I take a human with me?"  X asked.  He could manage to move Elle, anyway, and he wasn't sure that he should leave his partner to the worms' care while he went looking for whatever was needed to make an antidote.

"Probably better to keep them still for now.  Depending on what the poison is, moving them could make it circulate faster.  I just hope the equipment's portable."  Zara told him.  Go on.  I'll wait.  Aunt Zoe."  she called for her aunt as her cousin issued firm orders to the worms to look after the humans and not to let anything happen to anyone, especially his partner, under threats of loosing coffee priviledges for life.  "Can you get me my bag, please?"  Hopefully the handheld device that she carried for emergencies would have some information that could help, that is, if she could show her cousin how to identify the poison.

"Right here.  What's wrong with all of those poor humans?"  Zoe said as she came over.  "Are they going to be all right?"

"Maybe, at least if I can show X what to do to identify the poison anyway."  Zara sighed.  Who knows how long it could take to come up with an antidote, though?  And with how sick the human were, and how fast the poison had hit them, she knew that at least a few were likely to die before they could get help.

"Okay, I'm here.  What do I do?"  X said as he came into the lab.  He had ran practically the whole way, the image of his partner shaking and cold burned into his mind the whole time.  "Zara, please tell me that you know how to fix this."

"Show me the equipment first, okay?"  Zara told her cousin and then frowned as X waved the communicator at the machinery.  She could see the things that would be needed to figure out what poison had hit the agents, and she could tell her cousin what to do, but the equipment had been modified.  "X, there's a little problem.  Whoever's in charge of the lab must have modified the equipment.  I couldn't even begin to tell you how to turn it on."

"Zealtor."  X groaned.  It was just like that alien loon, to cause trouble even when he was collapsed in a poisoned heap.  It would serve him right if the poison killed him for this.  Now whaat were they going to do?


	4. Chapter 4

"Don't panic.  Don't panic.  I have a friend who works at a bookstore.  She says they have a book on everything.  I'll run down there and get something to help figure this out."  Zara reassured her cousin.  "I can be there and back in fifteen minutes, tops."

"What do I do while you're gone?"  X demanded.  "I can't just sit here while every agent is poisoned!  What if whoever does it comes back?"

"X, your job is catching murderers, or attempted ones.  My job is patching the victims back together.  If a murderer shows up, just do what you're supposed to do." 

"What about the agents?  Zara, I can't just leave them in the middle of the floor like they are!"

"Can you get blankets and pillows?  Really, the best thing to do, at least until we know what we're dealing with, is to try to make them comfortable just where they are."

"Blankets and pillows.  Got it."  X said as he hurried back towards the main room again.  "Zara, please hurry."  he begged before shouting for the worms to get busy and get things to make the poor agents comfortable.

"It must be bad.  He said please."  Zara murmured.

"Go, dear.  We'll all stay here and help him until you get back."  Zoe said as she almost pushed Zara out the door before going back to talk to X.  "Son, is there a way that you can hook the comm into that big monitor?  Maybe between all of us, we can think of something that could help."

"Zara, if you actually miss the brakes one day, and turn this place into a drive through, you know that my bosses are going to take it out of my pay, right?"  the JeeDangian sitting at the front counter of the bookstore said as Zara came hurrying in.

"Xendra, have I ever missed the brakes?  Where are you books on complicated machinery, possibly machinery that's been modified by a lunatic?  It's an emergency."

"The hospital didn't let that Doctor What's his Name, the one that you said was so weird, back in the place, did they?"  her friend asked as she stepped out from behind the desk and started to lead her towards the stacks.

"No, my cousin's got a problem, and I promised I would be back in fifteen minutes to solve it."  Zara scanned the shelves her Zendra pointed out and jerked out books with titles like Complicated Machinery for Dummies, What to do When a Lunatic Gets Their Hands on Complicated Machinery, Machinery Modifications and You, When Disaster Strikes. and How to Turn Things On.  Surely one of those would help.  "What about poisons?  Do you have anything on poisonings, especially poisonings and humans?"

"We have some books from Earth that one of our buyers picked up.  My boss wasn't sure of where to shelve them."  Zendra said as she lead her over to another shelf and waved.  "Speaking of Earth.  How's your cousin liking working there?"

"He was enjoying it, but he might be back a little sooner than he was planning if I don't find something to help and make it back to the house quick.  Someone just poisoned all of his little human co-workers.  I've got to talk him through making up an antidote, but first I've got to work out how to turn the machines in their medical lab on."

Before Zara could say anything else, the two Jeedangians heard someone approaching.  "Excuse me,"  a tall blue alien said.  "But did you just say something about humans and poisoning?"

After a moment, Zara slowly nodded.  "My cousin's co-workers.  Why?"

"You aren't talking about the MIB, are you?  Please tell me that you aren't talking about the MIB."  Edie asked.  Jay had told her about the Jeedangian they had been forced to hire, but surely it would be too much of a coincidence for his cousin to just pop up in the bookstore when she had been waiting with Aileen when their flight had been delayed.

"Yes.  I loved the special that cousin of yours managed to have the news do on them."  Zendra said.  "Some of those humans, like that Agent Kay, were really cute.  Why would someone hurt humans like that?  Here."  She shoved a stack of books at Zara.  "Maybe one of these will help.  Take them, and what you don't need, bring it back later."

"Wait a minute.  All of the agents are sick?  What about Jay?  And Kay?"  Edie demanded.

"Ummm...."  Zara paused, trying to put names with the faces from the TV special.  "They were there.  I remember now.  Poor things neither one of them looked too good from what I could see."

"Oh, no.  Wait here, then.  And can I get you to hold these?"  Edie said as she  thrust the books she had selected into Zendra's hands before rushing off to the bookstore's cafe, frantically waving for her partner.

"Aileen, we've got to go.  Little problem on Earth."  Edie said reaching her before she could stand and hauling her out of her seat and for the door where the Jeedangian was looking at them in puzzlement.  At least she was waiting for them though.

"Problem on Earth?"  How in the world would Edie find out about a problem on Earth while gathering more books that was good for her?

"Yeah.  All of the agents just got poisoned.  It's a heck of a coincidence, but that alien that Jay was complaining about them having to hire, his cousin just came in, trying to get some books to fgure out how to fix it."

"All of the agents?"  Aileen stopped dead in her tracks and the color faded from her face.  "Kay?"

"Aileen, I'm sorry."  Edie said as it hit her that maybe she ought to have worried more about letting her partner know what was happening gently than worrying about rushing her to try to help.

Aileen's entire body trembled and then she somehow pulled herself up straight, heading to the door under her own power.  "Excuse me, if my partner didn't explain this to you."  She said when she reached Zara, "but we know the MIB.  Every agent was poisoned?"

"Every person in the building, but my cousin and four worms.  They were out getting ice cream.  You know them?  I could appreciate some help with this.  X knows what he's doing when it comes to keeping the peace, but when it comes to a batch of sick humans, well, it's a different story.  I'm going to try to walk him through mixing up an antidote, if I can figure out how to turn the machines on to see what antidote they need, but I know he's worried that whoever did this could turn up."

"We're coming."  Aileen said as she followed Zara out to her vehicle. and got in on the passenger side, motioning for Edie to get in the back.  "How bad is it?"

"It hit them in under an hour.  Are the two of your law enforcement or something?  I'm sure you know that isn't good."  Zara said.  "You might want to make sure your seat belts are nice and tight.  I promised X I would hurry a little more than usual."


	5. Chapter 5

"Aunt Zoe, I'm back!"  Zara called as she came hurrying in, lagging the books wiht Aileen and Edie right behind her.  It had been so nice to ride with people who didn't panic the moment the passing vehicles turned into nothing but a blur, and who didn't take the shouting all around her the wrong way.  "I ran into a couple of people who are friends with those poor little agents too.  They're here to help.  How are the poor things?"

"Your uncle was able to hook the comm up to the television."  Zoe said.  "At least we could all see and offer some support that way.  Were you able to find anything at the bookstore?"

"I hope so."  Zara said as she followed her aunt into the living room again.  Everyone from the party was still there, and it looked like they had invited even more people over, if that was possible.  They were all clustered, on every available surface, watching what was going on in MIB headquarters and offering suggestions to X on what he could do to insure the humans' comfort.

"Kay."  Aileen whispered as she caught sight of the familiar figure, crumpled up in a heap by Jay and Zed.  She blinked her eyes hard, somehow forcing back tears.  Kay didn't need her falling apart on him now.  "Agent X?"  she called after thinking for a minute to recall what Kay had said the alien field agent's name was.  "How did this happen?"

"I don't know.  They were planning a surprise party for Zed, and Frank the Pug demolished the ice cream."  X said as he looked up to the big screen for a moment before turning his focus to the agents once more.  For a change, he didn't mind having his mother and all of his aunts and cousins looking over his shoulder.  At least they had been able to tell him how to make up beds for the sick agents.  For a moment he wandered who the blue alien that was questioning him was, thinking she looked suspiciously like Jay's description of Kay's girlfriend, before deciding it didn't matter.  He would take any help that he could get.  "I went out to get more ice cream, and the worms stowed away.  We were only gone two hours.  That's got to be some sort of record for shopping with worms.  When we came back, they were all collapsed.  Zara, please tell me that you know what to do!  They're freezing, and I've got every blanket that we could find around them!"

"Calm down.  Calm down."  Zara said as she dug through the books before sighing as she found one she thought would be helpful, an illustration out of What to do When a Lunatic Gets Their Hands on Complicated Machinery that looked suspiciously like the alien who had tampered with things at the hospital, messing up the equipment to the point that it took three days to figure out how to turn the lights on on a couple of floors once he left.  And there was someone that looked alarmingly similar in appearance on the screen, in a lab coat.  "X, please tell me that the blue alien in the lab coat isn't one of your doctors?"  But hadn't her cousin said that their other doctor was a loon?

"Zealtor, oh yes."  X grumbled.  "Why?"

"Because, I think I know his brother, or some relative.  Why am I not surprised that those machines were messed up like that?  Can you get down to the lab again?  I think I can tell you how to get enough on to figure out what was used on those poor humans anyway."

"Okay, Worms, watch them!"  X shouted as he unhooked his communicator.  "I know how many humans there are here, and they better all be alive when I come back!"

"Zara, please, help me fix this."   X said as soon as he got to the lab, and waved the comm around so that his cousin could see.  "What do I do?  They're getting worse every second!"

"Okay, that one on the table."  Zara said after a minute.  It would be the best one to use, since she seriously doubted she could walk X through drawing blood.  "Get that, the one on the left, and get it back to where those poor humans are.  I'll tell you how to turn it on and scan one so we can figure out what this is." 

"You're sure that this won't hurt them?  You should see some of the things that Zealtor's cooked up before.  What if it blows one of them up?"  X questioned as he picked up the device and started back.

"It shouldn't.  That would be out there even for a member of that family."  Zara said.

"I'm sure that Zealtor's the nuttiest one on that tree."  X grumbled.  He debated making U into the test subject when he reached the main room, but after a moment, he decided to risk Elle.  The little human was so sick that he was sure she needed treatment much more urgently.  "What do I do?"

"There should be a bunch of buttons on the side.  You hit the top left, bottom middle, and then the tow right and the very middle at the same time.  Then point it at the human and push the scan button."

"Okay."  X pushed the buttons and then turned it towards his partner, closing is eyes and he hit the scan button, not wanting to see if it blew her up.

"X, you can open your eyes."  Zara sighed.  It isn't dangerous.  I need you to show me what the scan said now,"

Okay."  X cautiously opened his eyes, sighing when he saw his partner in one piece.  He held the reading on the monitor screen up for Zara to see.  "Just tell me what to do to fix this!"

"Let me check the databanks."  Zara entered the poison's name in her handheld, and sighed when the name popped up a match.  She had been afraid that the poison used would be something truly exotic.  A moment later, she gasped, though, when she saw what the information said.

"What?  What's wrong?"  Something that made his cousin gasp couldn't be good.

"Little problem here."  Zara said.  "According to what's in the Jeedangian medical banks, the poison that was used on your little friends doesn't have an antidote."


	6. Chapter 6

"No antidote?"  X shouted as he dropped down by Elle.  What was going to happen to her if there wasn't an antidote?  He couldn't loose her!  He reached out, frantically rubbing her ice cold hands for a moment before turning back to the comm.  "Zara, please!  There's got to be something!"

"Calm down.  It says something about survival rates.  It must not be uniformly lethal."  Zara said as she paged through the information.  "Give me a minute.  Someone must have came up with some sort of treatment somewhere."

"Hurry!  Please, Zara."  X whispered the last as he continued to rub his partner's hands.  What was he going to do if she died?

Aileen swayed, and only the death grip she had on the back of one of the sofas kept the poor woman on her feet as what Zara just said sank in.  No antidote.  "How long?"  she said when she was finally able to speak.  "How long do they have?"  She was sure that it wouldn't be long enough for her to make it to Earth, and to Kay's side, though.

"Here, dear.  Why don't you sit down.  I'm sure my niece will find something."  Zoe said as he came to Aileen's side and wrapped an arm around her to steady her as she led her to a chair and glared at a cousin until he got the idea and moved so the poor girl could set.  "Zara, would it help to call the hospital?"

"Not really.  This is from their databanks."  Zara said as she scrolled through the information.  What idiot had decided that poking all of this in on famous cases using this poison, before the information about how to treat it?  Were they hoping that the delay would give the victims time to die so that they could have an up close encounter with a famous case?  "I am having words with whoever did this section.  Wait, here we are, treatment.  It's okay!  There are a couple of treatments you can try."

"Treatment?"  How in the world was he going to manage to treat this many humans.  X looked around the room in a panic before looking back at Elle,  If it would save Little Ears, though, he would do anything.  "Zara, please!  Whatever it is, I'm willing to try!"

"Let me see."  Zara said as she looked over the treatments, trying to figure out what to suggest to her cousin.  Why didn't these things offer potential survival rates too.  "This might work." She said after a minute.  "It uses Earth ingredients, and it's listed as promising."

"Promising is good."  X said.  "It's very good.  What do I do?"

"It looks simple, thank goodness.  Zara told him.  "You mix calcium, Vitamin C, and then tan...  Geesh, what is this one?"

"Let me see."  Aileen finally spoke as she looked up and waved Zara over for her.  After a minute she sighed.  She had been afraid that it would be something harder than that.  "Tea.  It's tea, the regular kind, not the herbals."

"X, did you hear that?"

"Tea, right.  Finally, I can get some use out of those worms."  X said.  "Worms, get some water boiling!  We need tea, and a lot of it, fast!"

"Tea?  What do you need THAT for?"

"Besides, we don't have any."

"What do you mean we don't have any?"  X demanded.

"We threw it all out."

"Zed said we had to straighten up all of the cupboards before we could get more coffee.

"And who drinks that stuff, anyway?"

"Poisoning victims, that's who, and we happen to have a ton of them on our hands at the moment."  X said.  "At least start boiling the water."  He was going to have to make a run to the store.  Suddenly, he paused as something occurred to him.  Leaving meant leaving his partner alone with the worms.  What if something happened?  "Zara, are you sure that these humans can't be moved?  Little Ears is not going to be happy if she finds out I left her with four worms to play nursemaid."

"I'm sure.  And even if they could be moved, you wouldn't want to know how much pain it would cause them.  There's really no tea at all in the place?"

"If you knew these worms, you wouldn't ask that.  I'm going to ask Zed to take away their coffee for a month, that is if this doesn't kill him."  X reached out and snagged the nearest worm.  "I've got to go to the store.  The four of you stay here, and look after the agents.  And no coffee breaks!"

"What?  You're leaving us alone?"

"But what if whoever poisoned them comes back!"

"No!  Take us with you!"

"Someone has to take care of them!  Do you think they look like they can defend themselves?"  X demanded.  "Just watch them, and I'll be back as fast as I can.  I thought that they were your friends, especially Agent Jay."  He added, when he noticed the worms still shaking.  "Do you want him to die?"

The four looked at each other before finally nodding.

"Okay, we'll stay."

"Good, just watch them and try to make them comfortable.  And don't eat the ice cream!  That has calcium, right?  We'll need it later."  X ordered before heading for the SUV.  "Zara, what about the vitamin C?"

""Orange juice, or oranges."  Aileen said.  "Is there some way that we can watch what's going on at headquarters while you're gone?"  She didn't think she could stand it, not being able to at least see Kay, even if there wasn't anything that she could do to help him.

"There might be a way if you can tell the worms what to do."  X said.

"I'm sure I can.  That monitor bank looks a lot like the hospital switchboard, and they draft whoever makes the mistake of wandering past rather than calling for a temp when the receptionist is out sick.  Just hurry, X."

"Hey."  Edie caught Zara's arm and tugged her into the hall as Aileen got out her own comm to call the worms.  "Listen, my partner's close to Agent Kay, as in close enough that if he asked her to marry him, she would be on Earth in an instant.    I need to know this.  Does whatever you were looking at say how much of a chance the agents have?"

"It depends on how fast X can get that mixture brewed up."  Zara said.  "Four hours, and they're going to start loosing body parts due to the compromised circulation.  Six hours, and we're going to start seeing fatalities."


	7. Chapter 7

"Wait a minute.  Losing body parts?  You didn't say anything about the humans losing body parts!"  X yelled as he opened the door of the SUV and hopped in, speeding out of the MIB garage after dumping the worms' coffee on the pavement, jerking on his human mask just as he turned onto the road to the store.  "Do you know how attached Elle is to all of her parts?"  She would have his ears if she woke up and was missing something.  And he wasn't even going to let himself think about what Zara had said about six hours before fatalities.

"If you get them treated fast enough, you won't have to worry about that."  Zara said.  "Don't worry.  Just think of it as permission to drive a little faster than usual."

"You've used that before.  Remember suspension one?"  X grumbled.  And he didn't need a reason to speed in the first place.  The only reason that he was holding back on hitting the little red button on the SUV was the lack of agents to handle neuralizing all of the humans afterwards.  "Zara, please say you were kidding about the humans losing parts."

"I wish I was.  You said yourself how they were all freezing."

"I know.  Elle's hands were like blocks of ice."  X said as he speed around a bus, cutting off a taxi and shooting through a red light to the blare of horns.

"Right.  That's the circulation being compromised.  What those poor humans were dosed with is seriously nasty stuff.  If that blood doesn't get flowing again, and the faster the better, they're going to start losing things, and they'll be lucky if it's just fingers."

"I think Little Ears likes her fingers.  If she loses something, you can come to Earth and break the news to her."  X said.  "Zara, what do I do when I have the tea, just dump it all together and feed it to them?"

"Basically, yes.  It should bind the poison, and keep it from doing more damage until it has time to get out of their systems."  Zara told him.  "Even if it works the way it should, though, those poor things are going to be sick for awhile."

"What?  Who's going to protect the planet if every agent but me is sick?"  X said.  "Zara, you do not know the Hollywood agents.  A couple of them make the worms look useful!  And if I call over to the office in Japan, Agent Kay will probably wish he died from the poisoned cake.  He has serious issues with their head."

"They are going to be all right, though, aren't they?  Zara, please tell me that this is going to work."  X pleaded with his cousin after a moment.  He could worry about protecting the planet later.  Right now he just had to think about saving his partner.

Zara hesitated, and X immediately caught on that something was up.  "You don't think it will work?  Zara!  No, they can't die!  I can't lose...."

"No, it's not that.  It's just that this hasn't been tried on humans before is all.  It should work.  I'm sure it will work.  And what was that you were saying about not wanting to lose someone?  Is there something I need to tell Aunt Zoe about you and that little human of yours?"

"No, there is nothing you need to tell my mother."  X said as he zoomed around a station wagon full of nuns,cutting them off and causing the sister behind the wheel to shout something that he was pretty sure would net her penitence for at least a few years.  "So, what do I do when I get this stuff mixed?"

"I'm going to let you tell him what to do while I check with Aileen."  Edie said.  "Maybe she'll have some ideas on what to do as far as protecting the planet until the agents are back on their feet."  And the tall alien wasn't going to let herself think that anything else was going to happen.  Jay was a good friend.  She didn't want to loose him, and it would destroy her partner to loose Kay.

When she came back in to the living room, Aileen was sitting, eyes glued to the TV screen, and the crumpled blanket-covered heap that was Agent Kay.

"Aileen?"  Edie said as she came over and touched her lightly on the shoulder to get her attention.  Maybe giving her something else to focus on besides watching Kay, and thinking she might see him breathe his last at any moment might help.  "Agent X brought up something.  With all of the agents down, who's going to protect the planet?"

"Oh, dear.  I'm sure those poor little humans wouldn't like it at all if they woke up to find their planet trashed."  Zoe said.  "I could call Chief Zeredon.  Maybe he could offer some suggestions?  I'm sure there are loads of peacekeepers who would be happy to help the humans out temporarily."

"That's probably the best idea."  Aileen said after a moment to recall what resources the MIB had besides the agents in New York.  But even if they could get peacekeepers on their way now, it would be at least a standard day before assistance could arrive.  "Is there some sort of way to access the MIB's systems from here?  There might be someone closer that could fill in, at least until we can get more help to the system."

"If you can show those worms how to do it, I could probably rig something up."  An uncle volunteered as Zara came back in, and a couple of cousins offered to provide more TV sets and equipment for monitoring purposes.

"I can show them how to do it, no problem."  Zara said before turning her attention to the situation at hand.  "Hey, worms, are any of those poor things still throwing up?"

"Nope."

"Not even Agent U anymore, and you should have seen how he threw up after the New Year's party."

"And after the Christmas party."

"There's moaning, though.  There's a whole lot of that."

Not good.  Those poor humans.  Zara didn't want to think of how much pain they had to be in, and there was no way that she could risk trying to talk her cousin through dispensing pain medication.  "Aunt Zoe, could you call the hospital and let them know that they're going to have to find someone else to work tomorrow?  The only option that she could see was to head to Earth herself as soon as X had the humans half-way stable, to try to help him.

"Should I see if they can spare anyone else?  All of those poor humans."  Zoe murmured, already thinking of where she had put her travel bag.  She couldn't just stay at home with that many people needing assistance.

"Tell them I have a disaster on my hands, and see if they have anyone they can spare that doesn't mind coping with that sort of thing."  Zara said.  She was sure that one or two of the people that she had worked with in various situations over the years would jump at a chance to go to Earth and get some experience in working with humans.  "Worms?  What's the temperature like there?  Those humans need to be kept warm right now."

"It feels warm to me."

"Just like an espresso grande."

"The humans don't seem warm, though.  They're still shaking."

"And cold."  a worm said as he reached out and touched Jay.  "What are they doing so cold?"

For the first time, the seriousness of the situation seemed to be getting through to the worms, as they all clustered around the crumpled form of their friend.

"No, don't try to wake him or anything.  Right now they just need to be still and quiet.  See if you can turn the temperature up in there, too."  Zara told them.  "And make sure that the humans are all covered up, everything but their faces.  They need to stay warm."

"Okay, warm.  We can do that."

"Wait, what's that?"  One of the younger cousins called from where she was sitting on the floor, watching the screen and for once not complaining about missing her favorite show like she had at the last six family gatherings.  "See, there, over by that thing where the big aliens are collapsed.  There's something moving down at the bottom."

"What is that?"  Zara said as she dropped to the floor herself to get a better view, with Aileen dropping down beside her.  "It was some sort of creature, but it didn't look right to be an Earth animal.

"It's a Fmeck.  How did they get in there?"  Aileen murmured as she recognized the alien in question.  And more importantly, with only four worms there, how were they going to get them out?


	8. Chapter 8

"Fmecks?"  Are you telling me that those little things managed to take out the MIB?"  Edie said.

"No, they couldn't have.  They're too small.  Just being in the room with that stuff would probably be enough to kill them."  Zara said.  It's nasty to say the least.  It's probably a good thing that the worms didn't get any of that cake.  I would hate to see what it might have done to them."

"Go and tell your cousin what's going on."  Aileen told Zara as she watched the Fmecks.  At least they weren't making a move towards the agents yet, but she was sure that would change as soon as they were sure that the agents actually were out of the way.  She knew all too well from stories that she had heard from Kay that despite the Fmecks' small size, they could be a king sized hazard.  She motioned for Edie to hand over her communicator and punched in Kay's number.  They couldn't just shout out a warning to the worms over the current hook-up without alerting the Fmecks, and then who knows what they might do.  She just hoped that Kay had his communicator on him.

"X?"  Zara called to her cousin as she went back into the hall.  "Where are you?"

"Just pulling into the parking lot."  X said as he slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the SUV.  He could see the clerks at the front of the store cringing as he approached.  Apparently an hour wasn't enough time to forget the horror of having the serve the worms.

"No, not you!  You can't come in this store!"  The manager said as he threw himself against the doors to try to keep X from getting in.  "Isn't what those little brats of yours did earlier bad enough?  Have you came back to finish off my store?"  When X wouldn't back away, he grabbed a mop, and waved it at the agent as X pushed his way in.  "Get out!"

"They aren't with me!"  X shouted.  Okay, what the worms did was bad, but really, wasn't this guy kind of taking it a bit too hard?  "I have an emergency!"

"With children like that, you have an emergency all right.  Two stock boys quit after they saw what those brats did to the coffee aisle.  Go."  The manager  moaned as he slumped to the ground.  "Go and demolish the rest of the store.  My children don't really need to eat, and I'm sure that college education they were hoping for wasn't very important."

"At the prices that you're charging, where were you planning to send them to college, Alpha Centauri?"  X said as he snagged a buggy, and then after a moment snagged a second one, scanning the signs for a moment before spotting the tea aisle and racing for it.

"No, not you again!"  The stockboy said as he spotted X coming, and jumped up onto a display.   "I'm not facing those monsters!"

""They aren't with me!"  Just his luck that the tea was on the same aisle as the coffee.  X reached out and started to jerk boxes down as fast as he could before he spotted something on a shelf.  "They have ready made tea!  Zara, would that work?"

"It can't hurt to get some and give it a try."  Zara said.  "But we've got a problem back at MIB headquarters.  It looks like some Fmecks are on the loose in the building.  We're trying to figure out how to warn the worms now without letting the Fmecks know they've been spotted."

"You mean the Fmecks did this?  I'll get a fly swatter and smash them."  X grumbled before snagging the stock boy again.  "I need another cart now!"  He couldn't believe this.  True, his partner had claimed that the Fmecks had kidnapped her once, but he still didn't see how they could be a serious threat.  He had always thought that Elle had allowed the Fmeck to take her so that she would have an excuse to get into the field.

"No, there's no way they could have done this.  They're too small.  The poison would have taken them out before they could have got it anywhere near a human.  That doesn't mean that they're not going to take advantage of the situation."

"How in the world did they find out that the MIB was out of the way, though?"  X said as the shaking clerk came back, and X dumped the rest of the jugs of tea into the new cart, then somehow managed to catch them all for the trip to frozen foods, and the orange juice.  "I'm shopping as fast as I can.  Just tell the worms to hold on, and I'll be right back.  How hard could the Fmecks be for them to deal with?  They're ten times bigger!"  And maybe he ought to swing by Jeebs' shop on the way back, to arrest him for something preemptively?  No, better wait until he had dosed Little Ears, though.  He was sure that she wouldn't be willing to sacrifice a few fingers to keep Jeebs in line.

"Just hurry.  I know they're small, but with the condition those poor humans are in, even little weapons could do a lot of damage to them."  Zara warned him.

"What do you think I'm doing?  Do you think I want to spend anymore time around the manager here than I have to?  I think the worms gave him a breakdown.  He seemed much saner this morning."  X didn't even look, just pulled every jug of orange juice off the shelf until the carts were filled to overflowing, before heading for the counter.  "I'll be on my way as soon as I check out.  Zed's probably going to wish the poison had finished him off when he sees the bill for this."

"Okay, I'll give you the dosing instructions on your way back."  Zara said as she headed into the living room again.  "Aunt Zoe, what's happening with the Fmecks?  X should be on his way back in a few minutes."

"They don't seem to be going after those poor humans yet, anyway."  Zoe replied.

"But things would be going a lot better if the worms would pick up Kay's communicator."  Aileen murmured.  She cringed slightly as she got a better look at one of the Fmecks.  They had their heaviest weapons with them, and she didn't want to think of the damage that a blast could do, given the humans' conditions.  She hit the connect button again and prayed that this time a worm would notice.

"Zara, little problem here."  X said over the communicator before his cousin could get involved in the Fmeck situation.

"What?"

"I'm halfway through checking out and the humans just ran out screaming.  You know Drek?"

"The one with the hot hands?  Who could forget him?  Why?"

"He just knocked over a bank."  X sighed as he dumped the bagged groceries in with the ones the humans hadn't gotten to yet before they fled.  If they weren't brave enough to stay and check out, that had to mean he didn't have to pay.

"That's terrible.  I'm sure those little humans will be very upset, but I don't think you have time to arrest him right now."

"That's not the problem."  X said as he came out and started to load the grocieries as the humans ran around screaming.  "He literally knocked over a bank.  It's in the middle of the street.  I'm going to have to find a detour to get back to headquarters."


	9. Chapter 9

"Well, how long is finding a detour going to take?"  Zara asked.

"I don't know.  I just hope that was the only bank that Drek knocked over.  Zed isn't going to be happy, especially with all of these people running around without being neuralyzed.  We'll probably have to zap the city into forgetting a week when the agents finally get back on their  feet."  X grumbled as he finished tossing the groceries in and got behind the wheel.  Really, Zed would probably argue that he should neuralyze the humans before leaving, but X just didn't see how he had the time.  Zed might be willing to sacrifice fingers, but he was sure that Elle wasn't, not to mention, he wasn't willing to sacrifice his ears to the explosion should his partner wake up to find a few fingers missing.  Wait, Zara had said something about how the agents would be lucky if they just lost fingers.  Ears counted as extremities, he was sure.  What if the humans lost those?  He didn't want to think of how Elle would take that, and he was sure that she would blame him.  "Zara!"

"Just get there as fast as you can.  I've got to go.  Looks like a worm might be getting a clue that Agent Kay's jacket shouldn't be beeping like that. Call me back as soon as you've found that detour, okay?"  Zara told X before he could start yelling about the loss of extremities that she had warned him about earlier.  Somehow, she didn't think that poor little Aileen needed to hear something like that now.  With the way that she was looking at Agent Kay while awaiting the worms catching on about the comm, Zara had a feeling she was more than a little attached to that human's extremities.

"Hello?"  One of the worms called after rummaging around in Kay's jacket and retrieving his communicator.  "I'm afraid that Agent Kay can't talk right now.  He's taking a sick day.  Can I take a message?"

"Worm?"  Aileen said.  She could never recall the worms' names, and even if she could, with those four, it was almost impossible to tell them apart.

"Aileen?  What are you doing calling?"  the worm asked.

"Listen to me very carefully, and try to stay calm, all right?  There are Fmecks in the building.  You have to protect...."

"Fmecks?"  The worm shouted as he dropped the communicator with a bang that made Aileen wince.  He looked at his buddies as panic washed over him,  "Run!"

"I can't believe those four."  Edie grumbled as the worms all darted out of sight.  Sure, they were small, but how could they just abandon their sick friends to the fate they would suffer if the Fmecks got them?

"It's not their fault.  They're not agents.  They're not trained to fight.  Wanting them to stand up against the Fmecks was more than we should have expected."  Aileen whispered as she looked down at the communicator.  When the worm had dropped it, it had landed by Kay, and she could  at least see his face, he was deathly pale, with sweat dotting his forehead as he twitched slightly.  She somehow got to her feet, biting her lip to hold in a sob.  "I'll be back."  she murmured as she stumbled into the kitchen.  Tears started to roll down her cheeks as soon as she was out of view, but somehow she held back the sobs.  If Kay was in any condition to hear right now, he didn't need to hear her giving in to hysterics.

"Kay?"  She called his name as she dropped into the kitchen chair and placed the comm carefully on the table, burying her face in her hands for a moment to muffle a sob she couldn't keep in before turning back to the communicator and starting to talk.  With the worms gone she didn't see anything else she could do, and maybe somehow he would be able to hear her.

"Kay?  It's Aileen."  she whispered.  "I'm here."  He was moaning.  She could hear that now, and the tears came harder at that sound.  When she found whoever had done this, she didn't know what she would do, but she knew it wouldn't be pleasant.  She couldn't think of that now, though.  Vengence could come later.  "Kay?  I'm here, and I'm not going to leave, even if I can't be there in person.  I'm right here.  I love you."  Please, if he couldn't hear anything else, let him hear her tell him that.  Why had they wasted so much time, not actually coming out and admitting their feelings, letting work come in between what they could have had together?  "I love you, and you don't know how sorry I am that it took so long for me to tell you that.  I love you, and I hope that if you don't hear anything else, that you hear that."

"Aileen?"  one of the worms poked his head out from behind a desk that all four were clustered under for safety, listening for a moment before ducking back.  "She's crying."

"Crying?  Aileen doesn't cry."  a second worm said as he looked at his buddies.  Aileen was like Kay that way.  She was crying, though, even though they could tell she was trying to hold sobs back.  The four worms looked at each other as something they had never felt before, even after raiding Zed's personal stash hit them, guilt.  They had made Aileen cry.  Because they had ran away in terror, she thought she was going to loose Kay.

"We can't do it."

"But what can we do about the Fmecks?  We're cowards."

"Devout cowards."

"Biggest ones around."

"Pull yourselves together, wormies."  the first worm said as he looked over the edge of the desk again, and his antennae twitched at the sound of Aileen talking to Kay and the sobs that they could hear her trying to hold back.  "Can we really abandon them?  Can we abandon a lady in distress?"

"Jay is awfully good to us."

"Zed too, even if he won't share his good coffee."

"And Kay."

"And Elle."

"Even U isn't that bad."

"But how do we stop the Fmecks?"  Even though the worms were bigger, the Fmecks were armed and Zed had made doubly sure that the worms couldn't get into the weapons lockers after an incident with an icer, and an attempt to make a chilled mocha latte.

"Wait, I think I've got an idea."  a second worm said after another glance out, and then a glance in the direction of Zed's office.  "Come on.  I've got a plan."  He told the others as they all put their antennae together to talk.

"Aileen?"  Edie called her partner's name as she popped into the kitchen a few minutes later, stopping short for a moment when she saw the tears running down her cheeks.  "Hey, you aren't going to believe this, but the worms are back, and they're armed.  Well, sort of armed.  Come on." She said as she came over to her, taking a moment to collect a wet towel for Aileen's tear-soaked cheeks and eyes.

"They came back?"  Aileen whispered as she stared at Edie in shock.  Was there a chance that she wasn't going to lose Kay after all?

"It surprised me, but they're there.  Well, three of them, anyway.  I'm not sure where the fourth one went to."  Edie said as she helped her partner up and led her back into the living room.  "I have no idea what they're up to, though."

Three of the worms were on the screen, coffee pots on their hands like helmets, one worm clutching Zed's fishing net, another armed with his fishing rod, and the third toting a spatula from the kitchenette.

"What in the world are they doing?"  Aileen murmured as she sat down again, holding the comm close, wishing that it was Kay she was holding..  And more importantly, where was the fourth worm?


	10. Chapter 10

Before Aileen could wonder more about where the fourth worm had vanished to, the doorbell rang.

"Thank goodness."  Zoe sighed when she looked out and spotted her son's former boss, Chief Zeredon on the doorstep.  Although she hated to, she waved for Aileen to come and join her.  The poor girl was the only one who could give him the information that he would need on the MIB.  And maybe it would be good to have something to distract her from the danger that young man of hers was in.  "I'm glad you could get here so quickly."  she said as she opened the door.

"The entire MIB was incapacitated?"  Zeredon asked, nodding first to Zoe, and then to Aileen when he came in.

"All except for my son and the worms there."  Zoe told him as she waved at the television screen.  "Except we seem to have lost a worm somewhere."

"Worms and your son are all those poor humans have for help?"  Zeredon said as he looked at the television and the sea of blanket-covered bodies.  "I hope all of them have wills."

"My cousin isn't that bad."  Zara said as she came over with communicator out again.  "No, I can't come to work tomorrow, and from the looks of things, I'm going to be lucky to get to work two weeks from tomorrow.  I'm supposed to assist with disasters, aren't I?  Is it my fault that a gigantic one just popped up?  Isn't there anyone else in the hospital who you can trick into pulling a triple shift?  Well, if there isn't hire someone else.  I'm sure there's a newbie nurse somewhere just aching to die of overwork."

"I swear, I don't know what they're thinking."  Zara said as she clicked the communicator closed before her boss could argue more.  And anyway, she ought to leave the line open for her cousin.  "I've got a couple of medics that I've worked with before getting things ready to go as soon as X gets back, and hopefully gets those poor little humans dosed.  There is a way into the systems, isn't there?  It would be a big help if I knew what supplies they have on hand.  I doubt they're prepared for an emergency like this, though."

"Zed likes to be prepared for everything, but somehow, I don't think a poisoned birthday cake popped into his mind."  Aileen said as she looked at the screen and then down at the communicator that she was still clutching.  Kay was covered in sweat and she could tell that the trembling had increased.  "Where in the world is your cousin?"

"Trying to find a detour around a knocked over bank.  It was knocked over in the middle of the street."  Zara said as she took the communicator for a moment to assess the human.  He was obviously worse, and with what her cousin had told her about this particular human, it wasn't good.  "Can you see if you can get me into their medical systems?  I might need to get supplies to deal with this."  And it would be helpful if she knew what to tell her cousin, or she was afraid the worms, given how this one human was deteriorating, if they had to do something else to try to help them.

"I'll get you in.  It's bad, isn't it?"  Aileen asked.

"It's bad."  What good would it do to try to pretend that it wasn't?  Everyone in the house could figure out how bad it was by what was in the television screen.  "It's still fixable, though, if we can get them treated fast enough."  Where in the world was her cousin?  She punched in the number he had last called her from, and waited impatiently for him to pick up.

"What?"  X demanded as he hit the communicator on.

"Where are you?  Those humans need their medicine."  Zara demanded.

"Where am I?  I'm planning the death of whoever programmed the computer navigation in these things, that's where I am."   X banged on the dashboard with one hand, balancing the communicator against the steering wheel with the other.  He swerved just in time as an alien that he was sure he had seen on a wanted poster came leaping across the street.  "It's crazy here.  It looks like every criminal on the planet has decided to come out and play.  Can you tell those worms to make sure that some idiot didn't open the MIB detention blocks?"

"They're a little busy dealing with the Fmecks."  Zara said.  "Isn't there some way that you can get back faster?  Those poor humans really need help."  Zara said as she headed for the kitchen and hoped that it was far enough away that Aileen wouldn't hear her  "They're getting worse, X.  That poor Agent Kay, I'm not sure he's going to have to worry about losing extremities.  The way he's looking, I doubt he has four hours left.  They need treated fast."

"It's that bad?  What about Elle?"  X demanded just as he caught sight of Frank the Pug's newsstand.  Perfect.  That dog came trotting over to headquarters enough that he could probably find it in the middle of a blizzard.  Surely he could manage to get them back around the chaos the alien criminals were creating.  Zed wasn't going to be happy when he found out about all of this.  "Zara, I've got to go.  I just spotted my map, and I've got to catch him before the pound does.  Tell the worms I'll be there as soon as I can.  And if Elle looses anything, I'm holding them personally responsible!"

"There you are."  Frank said as X came hurrying up.  "Drek's on the loose!"  And he knew that it was only a matter of time before the big alien recalled his grudge against him.  "Wait, where's Kay?"   Kay and Jay were the two who usually dropped in on him, not X and....  "Come to think of it, where's Elle?  Didn't think she would let you out of her sight after that stunt you pulled with the television crew."

"She's taking a sick day.  All of the agents are taking sick days."  X said as he caught Frank by the scruff of the neck and dropped him onto the passenger seat of the SUV before getting in himself.  "I need you to give me directions back to headquarters, preferably directions without a bank on the route, before everyone ends up taking perminent sick days.  This thing is messed up."  he added as he banged on the SUV's directional system, causing a cracking noise that the garage agent wasn't going to be happy with if he lived through the day.

"What do you mean they're all taking sick days?"  Frank demanded.  "Even Kay?"  He'd never heard of Kay taking a sick day.  Even when he was infected with Millicrons, the most he took were a couple of sick hours.

"Especially Kay."  X said as he pulled onto the street.  "Which way?"

"Take a left up there.  What's going on?"  The alien dog demanded.

X debated for a moment, not sure if he should let anyone else, especially a stoolpigeon like Frank, know what was going on, but really, what choice did he have?  He needed Frank's help.  "Someone poisoned Zed's birthday cake.  I'm the only one still on my feet besides the worms."

"What?  Even Kay?"  Frank asked again.

"I already said especially Kay."  X said.  And it worried him, that Zara had seemed so concerned about the poor agent.  His cousin had handled every disaster that he could think of.  If she was concerned, he knew things had to be bad.  "Just get us there the fastest way that you know."  he demanded.  "And if any agents die, I'm going to have Zed hold you responsible for giving bad directions!"  And if something happened to his partner, that dog was getting a one way ticket to the pound!

"X is on his way back.  He said something about catching a map, so hopefully he'll get there soon."  Zara said as she came back in.

"How long are those poor humans going to be sick?  That is if that cousin of yours can manage getting back with something to treat them?"  Zeredon asked.  He did trust Zara's medical judgement even if putting her together with her cousin usually equalled disaster.

"At least a week, or maybe two for some of the worst cases."  Zara said as she looked over the screen.  Whatever the worms were trying to do, to stop the Fmecks, she wished they would finish it fast.  She was going to have to try to walk them through assessing the humans' conditions again.

"I've got peacekeepers lined up, wanting to go, but for that long, I think we're going to have to get a bit more creative.  I don't think the city council would be happy if I pulled half of the force off of the streets for who knows how long."  Zeredon said.  "We do have a nice class, just about to graduate from the academy, though."

"Rookies?"  Aileen said.

"Technically, but the commander assures me that it's the best class he's ever seen.  The only reason they're not already out on assignments is due to some paperwork snafu.  I can't send them out here, but Earth would be a different story."

"You're sure that they're up to it?"  Aileen asked.  Zed would die if he knew that she was seriously considering going along with this, but what other choice did they have?

"I'm sure.  If not for that paperwork mix-up, they'd already be working.  And I'm sure the academy instructors will be happy to come along as well.  What about the MIB?  Surely they have more agents than those in New York."

"They do, but I''m not sure how many would actually be any help."  Aileen told him.  She knew the Hollywood agents, especially Agent E, would be nothing but trouble,  The Nashville agents might be a bit better.  They were at least earnest, and hard working, but still, they were more employment agents than fighters.  And it would be hard to move agents from any other areas without trouble.  There was only one that she knew of to manage the whole of the Hawaiian islands, and goodness knows, that poor man had his hands full there.  "Whatever help you can spare, I'm sure that Zed would appreciate it."

"Hey, the fourth worm's back."  Edie suddenly called from where she was watching the screen.  "And what in the world does he have with him?"  The worm was dragging a cart, loaded down with a large glass item, and with some sort of animal perched on the top, lounging on a pillow.

"That's Zed's fish tank.  And Agent Elle's cat."  Aileen said after a moment.  What in the world were those worms up to?


	11. Chapter 11

I got him!" The worm called to his friends as he tugged the cart

around the crumpled agents and to the middle of the room. It had

taken forever to get into Elle's room to collect the cat, but it had

been worth it.

"Orion, we need your help." another of the worms said as Orion

leaped off of the pillow and onto the floor with a sniff when he

realized that the worm wasn't taking him to the fish that he could

smell in the aquarium.

Orion almost rolled his eyes at the worms. Of course they needed

help. But they were worms, after all, and how was he supposed to

help them? It isn't as if he could tell them how to change

themselves into cats. Something was wrong, though, he realized after

a moment when he spotted the crumpled heaps, and on closer inspection

saw that there was a human and in a few cases an alien tucked under

each blanket. And wasn't that his human servant over in a corner?

The cat frowned and his whiskers twitched. Elle was a good servant,

even if she brought that giant green scratching post by for a fun

filled afternoon of yelling as he was trying to nap. Orion padded

over and started to nudge her with his head. He had already been

forced to replace one servant. He had no desire to lose this one too.

"X is going to get something to fix all of the agents up." one of

the worms said as the group came over and clustered around the cat.

"But we need your help!"

They had trusted the scratching post to get help? Oh, these worms

were almost beyond assistance, but what else was a decent cat

supposed to do? With a kitty sigh, he turned and looked at them,

waiting to hear what they expected him to do about the situation.

"The Fmecks are in the building, and they're going to hurt the

agents if we don't stop them. You know what a Fmeck is, right?"

another worm said.

Did he know what a Fmeck was? His last servant had been an

Arquillian. Of course he knew what those nasty little things were,

and really he didn't know why in the world the Arquilians put up with

the situation. Sure they were pacifists, but there were ways around

that. Orion would have been happy to trot off to the Fmecks' home

planet before they got it blown up, to deal with them, and he was

sure that any number of cats that he could find would be happy to

drop in on the horrible things too. And there were Fmecks loose in

the building? This was perfect. He had always been curious about

what one would taste like. He was sure that they had to be like

chicken. With a spring, he darted away from the worms, nose

twitching as he jumped onto the Twins' console and them back to the

ground as he caught the scent of the Fmecks.

"What are they doing?" Aileen murmured as the worm that had been

missing armed himself with a spatula that one of the other worms held

out and then they clustered together in a group, spinning, trying to

figure out what way the cat had went.

Before she could try to figure things out any further, though, the

screams started and first one Fmeck and then another came racing out,

waving and shouting, their little weapons tumbling to the ground in

their haste to get away as Orion appeared, claws out, racing after

them and swiping at them with his claws.

"Tell me that the cat doesn't have a Fmeck in his mouth." Aileen

said as the sounds of twacking, swishing, and scooping filled the air

as the worms swooped down on the Fmecks fleeing Orion's claws and

teeth. Zed was going to have a heart attack if he survived the

poison. Would the Alien Rights Commission buy the notion that cats

would be cats when they heard about the eaten Fmecks?

"And stay in there!" the worms shouted together as they dumped the

last of the battered, smooshed, and in a couple of cases bitten

Fmecks into the fish tank and slammed and locked the lid down several

minutes later. Orion settled down by it with a hiss. He couldn't

believe that he hadn't been allowed to eat just one of the Fmecks.

But maybe they would make a break for it, and he would be waiting.

"Aileen?" a worm called. "We got rid of the Fmecks! Everything's

okay now!" At least she wasn't crying anymore. Kay was going to be

so upset if he ever found out that she had been crying.

"I don't know about okay. Do you think that Zed's going to notice

this?" a second worm said as he held up the broken fishing rod. He

was awfully attached to all of his fishing gear.

"I'm sure we can find him another one." Aileen told them, relief

washing over her as she realized that for the moment Kay was safe

before the fact that he was still critically ill from the poison hit

her. How much longer could he last without help?

"Let me talk to them, okay?" Zara said as she motioned for Aileen

to hand her the communicator. She would need the closer view if she

was going to try to walk the worms through assessing the poor

humans. "Worms? Hey, worms?"

"Yes?" one of the worms said as he picked up the communicator that

was at Kay's side and held it up so that he could see the Jeedangian

better.

"Hey, my cousin's on his way back with the stuff to fix up everyone,

but he's having to find a detour so it might be awhile. Do you think

the four of you can do something for me while we're waiting for him?"

"Sure thing!"

"Can do!"

"We got rid of the Fmecks, didn't we?"

"Okay, do you see that thing my cousin used to scan the humans to

see what kind of poison was used on them?"

"You mean this?" one of the worms called as he spotted the device

and scooped it up, bringing it over to where his friend was holding

the communicator.

"That's it." And thank heavens X hadn't turned it off. That would

make things much simpler. "I need you to point it at Agent Kay and

hit scan, okay? And then hold it up to the communicator so I can see

what it says."

"That sounds simple enough."

"Sure it won't blow him up? Zealtor's made some wierd things before."

"Well, it didn't blow Elle up, did it?"

"What sort of doctor did the MIB get stuck with?" Zara murmured to

herself as the worm held the scanner up and she looked at the

readout. It was what she was afraid of. The poor agent's heart

rhythm was shaky, sliding towards cardiac arrest. "Okay. What about

the rest of the humans? How are they? Are they as bad as Agent Kay?"

"Well, Zed doesn't look good."

"Or U."

"Here are a couple more." a worm called as a couple of them

scurried around the room to look at the others before coming back.

"Kay looks really bad, though. That's odd."

It was odd, Zara knew, for someone who was relatively young and in

good health to get hit so strongly by the poison, but she would leave

that to her cousin, the peacekeepers and everyone else to work out.

Her problem was figuring out how to keep the poor human alive. "Can

one of you take the communicator and go down to the medical lab? I'm

going to need to see about finding some medicine for that poor thing."

Medicine? How bad was it if Zara was taking a chance on trying to

walk the worms through giving out medication? Aileen closed her eyes

for a minute, blinking hard to hold back tears. She couldn't lose

Kay now.

"Medicine? Shouldn't we wait for your cousin?" The worms had

handled the Fmecks, true, but the idea of giving the humans,

especially someone like Kay actual medicine was way more than they

thought they could manage.

"I think my cousin might be taking a long detour. Don't worry.

This won't be hard." At least Zara hoped that she could work it out

so that it wouldn't be hard.

"Well, okay." the worms finally agreed and one of them picked up

the communicator.

"How bad?" Aileen whispered as they waited for the worm to reach

the medical lab. "How long?" Had Kay heard her when she told him

that she loved him? If he had heard nothing else, she prayed that he

had somehow heard that.

"It's fixable. It's still fixable." Zara tried to reassure her,

and hoped that she didn't think to ask if she had ever actually

treated humans before. Surely what they showed in the textbooks

couldn't be that off about the species. "Okay." She said as the

worm reached the lab, and waved the communicator around so that she

could see. "It ought to be in that cart on the far left. I'm not

sure of the exact name that they use there, but it should start with

digi. Think you can find that?"

"Can't be harder than finding the cream after everyone's been in the

kitchen." the worm said as he trotted over and started to dig

through the cart that Zara had indicated. A moment later he held up

and injector with an orange label. "Is this it?"

"That's it." And thank heavens, it came with the injector preloaded

with what looked like a configuration suitable for the average human

body weight. This wasn't going to be as hard as she thought.

"Okay. This isn't going to be a problem. Get those injectors. How

many are there?"

"At least a couple of dozen."

"Okay, that ought to work for now, then. And there are probably

more stuffed away somewhere. Get all of them, and take them down to

the main room."

"If you say so." the worm said as he gathered the injectors up and

dumped them in a box, after a moment adding Zealtor's pet bacteria

Lucy when she let out a roar. Were there any other pets that they

would need to worry about, that might need to be fed while everyone

was poisoned?

"This isn't bad. All I have to do is to tell them how to use the

injector. The drug's pre-measured. This is going to be fine." Zara

tried to reassure Aileen. "And hopefully that cousin of mine will be

there soon to take care of everything else."

Aileen nodded but didn't trust herself to speak at the moment. She

just watched on the main screen as the worm came into the room and

dropped the box down by Kay.

"All right. This is simple." Zara said. "All you do is pull the

seal off of the injector, and then press that end against bare skin.

The neck would probably be the easiest. Then push the button on the

end. There's nothing to it."

"Are you sure that we shouldn't wait for your cousin?" What if they

did something wrong? Zed would use them for fishbait if they hurt Kay.

"I wish we could. But trust me, this isn't going to be a problem.

The medicine's pre-measured. It's just a matter of injecting it."

Zara said.

"If you say so." And the injector did look a whole lot easier to

use than an espresso machine. Kay was trembling so much, though.

"You're absolutely sure?"

"Absolutely sure. Just trust me."

"Okay." The worm slowly stretched out a hand, and before he could

have time to really think it through, pressed the injector to Kay's

neck like Zara said and injected the contents


	12. Chapter 12

"Okay." Zara called to the worms when they finally stopped cringing, expecting Kay to die at any second from the medicine. "I need you to use that scanner again so I can see if the medicine did what it should."

"Well, all right." a worm said as he picked it up. Their confidence, something the worms really hadn't had large amounts of, was starting to come back faster now. It didn't seem like the medicine had hurt Kay, and didn't the MIB let Zealtor hand out drugs all the time? And everyone knew that he was insane. Why shouldn't they be allowed to mess with medicine too? What did Zealtor have that they didn't have? "Here you go."

"Okay." Zara said as she looked at the readings on the scanner the worm held up. Kay's heart rhythm was stabilizing a bit, but not as much as she hoped. She was going to take it for the moment, though. At least he was pulling back a bit from the brink of a cardiac arrest. "Can you show me the other humans that you thought looked pretty sick? We need to give that medicine a few more minutes to really get into his system." As she was talking, she flipped through the information in the JeeDangian medical records, trying to find what they had on humans and cardiac issues, and the best drugs to treat them with. If he didn't respond fast, she was going to have to walk the worms through something else, and hope that her cousin could get there fast. They were trying their hardest, but if he went into cardiac arrest, with the size difference, there wouldn't be anything those poor little things could do. Or maybe... "While I'm looking at those other humans, can one of you run back to the med lab and get that cart that had the injectors for me?" The worms were smart, a lot smarter than she had expected given some things she had heard from her cousin. Their size did limit them, but maybe there was something they could do if worst came to worst. She wasn't willing to give up on that particular human just yet.

"How bad is it?" Aileen whispered as the worm who had brought the injectors back hurried away while the others moved over to Zed and pointed the scanner at him so that Zara could work out what to do. The fact that he was sick enough that Zara had risked having the worms give him drugs was a bad enough sign but if she was sending them for more things, and what she had a bad feeling was a crash cart... "How long?" she somehow managed to speak firmly this time. She had to know.

"It's still fixable. It's still fixable." Zara tried to reassure her before turning back to the worms. "Okay. can one of you give him the injection just like your friend did with Agent Kay?" This really wasn't making sense. Zed's heart rhythm was shaky but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as Agent Kay's. With his age, he should have been in worse shape. What in the world was going on?

"That doesn't make sense." Zeredon said as the worms showed Zara the readings again after injecting Zed. "He's responding. Why isn't..."

"I don't know. And he did respond a little, just not as much as I'd like." Zara said. "Okay, Worms. Show me the next human." "How long?" Aileen asked again. She knew the JeeDangian didn't want to say, but she had to know how much time Kay likely had left. When she found out who did this, and she would, if it took her the rest of her life, she would kill them. "I don't know. Really, I don't. And hopefully it's just taking the drugs awhile to kick in." Zara wasn't going to say out loud how long she thought that the poor human could hold out, especially in here where there was a chance with how they had things hooked up that he could hear her. There had been cases she had heard of, where patients heard the staff giving up, and it was like they gave up too. She wasn't going to risk that. "Aunt Zoe, would you call that cousin of mine and see what in the world is taking him so long?" If they could get some sort of treatment for the poison started, then she thought the humans had a decent chance. "Okay, just like before for this one too." It didn't make sense, though. Why was Kay so much worse than the others? "Worms, has something else been going on there that I need to know about?"

"Not that we know."

"Wait, U's allergies have been acting up. Is that what you're wanting to know?"

"Yeah, Jay was scared that Zealtor might give him some cough syrup."

"He gets drunk on cough syrup."

"And on vanilla syrup."

"On practically anything, really. It isn't pretty."

"That might explain that." Zara murmured, at least if U was the human they were currently looking at, and Zed was explained by his age, and the other humans that the worms had pointed out were smaller, and more vulnerable. But that didn't explain Kay. He shouldn't have been hit that hard at least not this fast.

"Someone knew what they were doing. If there you're going to take out the MIB, Kay and Jay would be the first ones to go after." Edie said.

"Jay's not that sick though." one of the worms called.

"He's sick enough!"

"But not as bad as Kay." a third worm disagreed as they headed for the next human.

"I don't think any of them are as sick as Kay." the fourth worm called as he came in, dragging the cart. "Where do we need to put this?"

"In the middle of the room for now. Let me see those other humans and then we'll check Kay again. Hopefully it's just taking the drug a bit to kick in."

"Aileen?" Edie got her partner to her feet somehow and drug her out of the room, past Zoe who was waiting for X to pick up, and into the kitchen. "Aileen? Listen, I know you're scared, but you have to try to hold it together, okay? Kay isn't going to leave you. He isn't. But if he can hear how upset you are..." Edie couldn't believe this, that she was having to try to be the calm one for a change.

Aileen slowly nodded, even as tears started to roll down her cheeks. She wanted to believe that Kay was going to pull through this, but from what she had seen on the monitors... How long did he have?

"Hey, he's going to be okay. Aileen, he's going to be okay." Edie said as she hugged her partner to her. "That JeeDangian seems to know what she's doing, and I've always thought those worms had to be smarter than they let on. They'll fix this, and then we'll get to Earth and find out who did this to the agents and make them sorry they ever thought of it. Any ideas? I would think Alpha, but..."

"He'd already be there to gloat." Aileen murmured. Who else could it be, though? MIB didn't have a shortage of enemies.

"There you are." Zara said as she came in. Hopefully what she had thought of would help. "Come on. I need you in the living room now."

"What happened?" Aileen demanded as she hurried after Zara. Was Kay worse, or... No! He couldn't be dead. She wouldn't accept him dying like that.

"I've got another idea." Zara said as they came in, and Zeredon tossed the communicator back to her like it was on fire. "Okay, worms. Try the other injector, now. The second one I had you find." she told them before handing the communicator to Aileen.

"Talk to him."

"What?"

"It might not be strictly the poison that's causing the problem. He's got to be in a ton of pain. That might be messing up his heart more. Maybe if he can hear a familiar voice, it might help a little, and buy some time for the drugs to kick in." She had already had the worms try a round of the first medicine, and then a second drug without any significant effect.

"She could be right." Edie said. "Would it help if you could switch to Jay's communicator? I think I've got the number around here someplace."

"Kay?" Aileen whispered his name. It felt a little strange, doing this in front of an audience, but if it might help save his life, she didn't care. "I'm here. I'm right here, and we're trying to help you. You just have to hang on for a little bit longer, okay? I know you can do that." She blocked out everything else, and just focused on Kay, tuning out the JeeDangians and Edie bustling around in the background. The more she looked, the more she thought that the JeeDangian girl might be right. Kay's entire body was tense, and it couldn't all be from the poison. Was he trying to fight the pain, or in a worse move for his health, trying to fight to get to his feet somehow? "Kay, you're safe. The other agents are safe. Everything's okay. You just let us help you now, all right? Kay, please. Please trust me. Everyone's okay. I promise you they're all right. Just let us take care of you. Please."

"That's working. That's working." Zara sighed with relief as one of the worms showed her the latest readings on the scanner. The poor human's heart rhythm still wasn't terrific, but it was stable. She would take stable. "Just keep talking to him, okay?" She told Aileen. "And the four of you, give it a couple of minutes, and scan him again." Hopefully by then, the drugs would have kicked in fully and pulled him the rest of the way back. And hopefully her cousin would somehow manage to find his way back from wherever he was lost at, too.


	13. Chapter 13

Finally!" Zoe exclaimed when X finally picked up the line. "What

took you so long? And where in the world are you? Those poor humans

need help! Your cousin's having the worms do as much as they can,

but still, those poor things need that treatment fast!"

"Where am I? I'm trying to dodge around what looks like every

criminal the MIB's ever arrested!" X moaned as he swerved, taking

the SUV up onto the sidewalk and making Frank whimper alarmingly as

he somehow dodged another alien on the rampage. "How much further?"

he demanded from the dog.

"Another four blocks and then take a left." Frank said. "Hey,

what's going on?" He hopped back onto the seat from where he had

slid onto the floorboard, and leaned against the dash so he could

look at the communicator.

"Mom, please tell me that something else hasn't happened." X

demanded. If something happened to Elle, he would never forgive

himself. "Did the Fmecks..."

"No, no. Those little worms figured out how to handle them.

They're all locked up, waiting for you to do whatever you do with

criminals like that." Zoe told him. "The humans are getting worse,

though." She looked around, and edged into the kitchen as soon as

she saw that Zara had Aileen back in the living room. "Son, your

cousin's doing all she can, and those little worms are trying their

hardest, but if those humans don't get help fast... I'm afraid Agent

Kay doesn't seem to be doing that well." Zoe looked towards the

living room again before continuing. "I don't think he has much

longer if things keep going the way that they are."

"What?" X couldn't believe this. Kay was the most feared human in

the universe, and now his mother was saying that he might be on his

deathbed thanks to a poisoned birthday cake? And he wasn't even on a

bed. X closed his eyes for a minute, and considered banging his head

on the steering wheel in frustration before stomping down on the

gas. "Give me ten minutes. Surely Zara can figure a way to keep him

alive for ten minutes!"

"Don't you think your cousin's trying everything she can? She's

already had those little worms give him a couple of different drugs

to try to help." Zoe said.

"She had the worms do what?" Oh, now X was regretting leaving Elle

back at headquarters big time. So what if it would have caused her a

lot of pain? He was sure that she would take that over the worms

handing out medicine. "She didn't let them give anything to Elle,

did she? Because I like my ears, thank you very much." And if Elle

found out the worms had been playing doctor with her, he knew that

she would have his ears for sure.

"Oh, they did just fine." Zoe said. "Sweet little things. They've

been very brave about all of this. And don't think I haven't

noticed, Son, the attention that you've been paying to that little

human of yours. Is there something that you ought to tell me?"

"No, there's nothing at all." X said as he stomped on the brakes.

There was an alien that he was positive he had seen on a wanted sign

somewhere standing in the middle of the road, blocking all traffic.

Zed was going to have a heart attack. "Close your eyes." X demanded

after a moment. Elle had said he was supposed to fire a warning shot

before shooting something, but she never said what he was supposed to

do if he was going to run something down. "And if anyone asks, I

only grazed him." He hit the red button on the SUV, and it shot

forward at top speed, sending the alien flying as X sped by and

swerved in the direction that Frank had indicated. "Now what?"

"Just go straight. You can't miss it." Frank said. "Kay's really

that sick?" The pug's eyes went big as what he was hearing sunk in.

If Kay was sick enough that someone was risking letting the worms

give him drugs, then it had to be bad. Or was it? They did let

Zealtor had out medicine, after all, and Frank wasn't sure that that

alien wasn't actually an escapee from a mental institution somewhere.

"Don't even mention Zealtor. We're getting some sane medical help

for them." X grumbled before Frank could say a word. "Mom, how bad

is it?"

"I don't know. I'm not the one with the medical training, but Zara

seems very worried." Zoe told him.

Zara was worried. X wondered if his best suit was clean. He would

probably need it for the funeral. He didn't think he had ever

actually seen his cousin worried before, and she had been in plenty

of situations that should worry her. "Mom..."

"She's doing everything she can. I'm sure that she'll be able to

work out something. You just get there as fast as you can." Zoe

ordered him. "And for goodness sakes, don't get lost!"

"I wasn't lost! It's crazy out here!" X yelled as his mother cut

off the communication. Oh, just wonderful. "Hold onto your fur." X

ordered Frank as he swerved and cut off another bus. "I think I'm

going to have to go a little faster than this."

"There is something faster than this?" Frank moaned, and then he

let out a whine, and covered his eyes with his paws as X stomped down

on the gas. "Why did I bother asking?"

"That son of mine says that he'll be there in ten minutes." Zoe

said as she came back in. "How are those poor little things?"

"Stable, or as close to it as we're going to get without some sort

of treatment." Zara told her as she looked up from the latest

readings the worms had taken of Kay. The poor human's heart rhythm

was still nowhere near where she would like it, but at least it was

stable. She would take a lousy, halfway stable rhythm over one that

was a step away from cardiac arrest any day. And if her cousin

really could get there in ten minutes... "Hey, worms, can a couple

of you start emptying those punch bowls? As soon as X gets there,

we're going to have to start getting that stuff mixed up."

"Sure."

"They need the ice cream too, right?"

"Any particular flavor?"

"Probably something plain. Do you have something like that?"

"Vanilla's as plain as it gets. Are you sure that they wouldn't

like the coffee flavor better?" The agents were really sick, so the

worms were more than willing to share the good stuff for a change.

"Let's go with plain for now. I'm sure those poor things would

enjoy something tastier later, when they can appreciate it. And what

about those cups they were using for the punch? Do you have plenty

of those?"

"We can find more. There are lots down in storage."

"Good. Get those, and get the bowls ready. And hopefully X will be

there soon, so we can get this fixed."

"Ten minutes?" Aileen asked as she looked up from the

communicator. Did Kay have ten minutes? Even though Zara hadn't

said anything, she knew that he was in bad shape.

"Ten minutes I can do no problem." Zara reassured her. And if X

actually managed ten minutes, even if the poor human went into

cardiac arrest, he would still likely have a good chance. It was

afterwards that she was concerned about. "There aren't any other

doctors around besides the ones that work for the MIB?" She could

walk the worms and her cousin through dispensing basic medicine, but

optimally, they needed to get the worst humans, and especially Kay,

onto some sort of drip to provide continuous medicine. "What about a

dentist that likes a challenge?"

"I don't know, but I don't think so." Aileen said after a moment's

thought. "How bad?"

"Ten minutes. It's fixable. This is fixable. It would just be a

bit easier if there was someone there who had a bit more training.

What about a human?" The ones who were the sickest were the humans,

not the aliens so far. Surely a human with medical training would be

able to at least manage getting a line in and drugs running for those

poor things.

"Someone from outside the MIB?" Aileen said. "Zed would never

allow..."

"He might not have a choice. But hopefully they'll react fast to

that mixture if my cousin actually manages to get there to give it to

them, and we won't have to worry about that." Zara told her.

"Worms, make sure you have some water boiling too. We're probably

going to need it to make more tea." She reached out, and gently

patted Aileen's shoulder. "Don't worry. We're going to fix this."

"After a moment, she nodded. They had to fix this. "Kay?" She

whispered as she turned back to the communicator. He looked so sick,

sweat covering his face, and one cheek twitching oddly. "I'm here.

I'm right here, and X is going to be back in just a few minutes with

something to make you feel better. You just have to hang on a few

more minutes and we'll have this fixed, I promise." She took a deep

breath, trying to steady herself as she felt the panic washing over

her again. Kay couldn't hear that, not now. After a moment, she

spoke again, forcing herself to sound calm. "Everything's all

right. The other agents are fine, and in a few minutes, you're going

to feel a lot better, I promise you. I just want you to rest right

now, and when you wake up, I'll be there with you. I love you.

You're going to be just fine."


	14. Chapter 14

"I'm here, I'm here." X called as he came hurrying in, dragging a cart loaded down with the supplies from the store, Frank trotting along at his heels. "What do I do now?" At least it wasn't as bad as he had expected. The Fmecks were all locked up, although X didn't want to know what the worms had done with Zed's fish, and somehow, they had the punch bowls ready, and by some miracle it looked like none of the agents were dead yet.

"Whoa. They really are sick." Frank said as he trotted past X, and started to poke around the piles of collapsed agents. "This looks like one of those horror movies or something. So, how did the five of you miss this?"

"We were out replacing the ice cream that you ate." X grumbled. He couldn't believe it, but they might honestly owe Frank one. If he hadn't munched down all of that ice cream, they would have been poisoned too, and then X didn't want to think of what might have happened. "Zara, what do I do?" His first instinct was to run and check on Elle, but he knew that he couldn't, not until he had something fixed to treat the agents. And he could hear her moaning. Even though the sound was unpleasant, he had to take it as a good sign. At least she wasn't dead.

"Put the tea and the orange juice in with the ice cream. Try to get the proportions as equal as you can." Zara told him. "Then you're going to have to get at least one of those punch cups down each of those poor things."

"I have to feed them? How do you expect me to do that?" X demanded as he started to dump the tea and orange juice together.

"You can manage it. I'm sure you can manage it." Zara said. She really hoped her cousin could manage getting those poor agents awake enough to swallow, anyway. Everyone was doing a good job so far, but she really, really didn't want to have to try to walk her cousin and the worms through how they would do something like this in the hospital, using tubing to force the mixture into the stomachs of unconscious or uncooperative patients. And she was sure that the poor agents wouldn't like it very much either.

"Hey, Kay is sick." Frank said as he finally spotted the senior agent and went trotting over, looking down at him in shock. He had always thought of Kay as invulnerable, but seeing him like this... "Hey, did whoever did this manage to get the wardrobe agents too? I'm going to need to get this suit cleaned for the..."

Before Frank could finish the sentence, the worms tackled him.

"No, nothing you're going to need that suit cleaned for."

"Absolutely nothing."

"Taking care of sick humans doesn't require a clean suit."

"Hey, X, have you got that stuff mixed up yet?" the fourth worm said as he drug Frank away from Kay, and more importantly, the communicator that Aileen was talking to him though, before he could bring up funerals. If she started crying again, they didn't want to think of how Kay would react.

"I think so." With the ice cream, the mixture was more than a bit thick and lumpy, and X really wasn't sure how in the world he was supposed to get it into the agents. He didn't see that he had any choice but to try, though. Zara?"

"It won't be as hard as it looks." Zara told him. "Most of them sound like they're moaning, right? They've got to be at least semi- conscious. If they are, it shouldn't be that hard to get that stuff down them. You need to start with poor Agent Kay first, though."

X hesitated for a second. He really wanted to look after Elle first. But he knew Zara was right. Kay was definitely the worst of the agents. How in the world did that happen? He filled one of the punch glasses, and hurried over to the crumpled agent. "Zara? Little problem here." He said after a moment.

"Little problem?" Aileen said as she looked up at Zara and then back down at the communicator. The twitching had increased, and Kay's skin was slowly taking on a grayish color. If he couldn't get that treatment fast...

"Here, let me see." Zara said as she leaned over the back of the chair that Aileen was in, and looked at the communicator. After a moment she let out a sigh of frustration. The poor human's jaw was clamped tightly shut. Just perfect. Why couldn't the sickest one of the lot be moaning, and at least semi-conscious like the rest? "X, do me a favor and scan him again for me, would you? I might need to try to tell you how to do something else to get that stuff down him. Don't worry. We'll get the stuff into him. No problem.." She tried to reassure Aileen. She really didn't like the way the poor man's heart rhythm looked on the scanner, though. The tubing was uncomfortable to say the least, and adding more pain on top of the pain he had to already be in wasn't going to be a good thing. Pain was a small price to pay if it saved the human's life, though.. "X, think you can give him a dose from the orange injector before I tell you what to do?"

"You are explaining this to Zed if something goes wrong." X grumbled as he picked up the injector. "What do I do with this, anyway?"

"Take off the seal and put it against his neck." one of the worms said as all four came trotting over. "The push the little button."

"It's a lot easier than operating an espresso machine."

"Wait. Let me try something." Aileen said a second later before Zara could tell X anything else to try. She really didn't like how uncertain the JeeDangian looked about the other ways to get the mixture into Kay. "Kay?" she called to him. He wasn't as unconscious as they thought he was, and he was obviously trying to fight the pain somehow. "Kay, we're trying to help you. Kay?" No, trying to talk him into relaxing would take too long. There had to be a faster way. "Kay?" She said as an idea hit her. If this didn't get him to drop that jaw, she didn't know what would. "I think I just saw Jay driving off in the LTD."

"Good, good. X, do it fast!" Zara ordered her cousin as the human's jaw dropped.

"You're lucky that didn't give him a heart attack." Edie chuckled as X poured the mix down Kay quickly. "I hope he doesn't remember that when he wakes up, or Jay's going to want to kill you."

"A heart attack would be easier to fix than this." Zara grumbled. "Can you scan him again? And you might want to try to get some more of that stuff down him too, while he's halfway cooperating."

"Okay. That's a little better." She said after a moment. A little better still wasn't good, but she would take anything she could get. "You need to do the same thing with the rest of the agents. Hopefully they'll be a little more cooperative." As she talked, she started taking notes on a pad. Who knows how much the MIB actually had on hand as far as drugs were concerned. She would have to call the hospital and see what they could spare to be on the safe side. Even with treatment, those poor humans were going to need a lot of help.

"Kay?" Aileen called his name again as X moved off with the worms to start on helping the others. Even with the treatment, he still looked awful and she had to bite her lip for a moment to hold back a sob. "Kay, I'm right here, and you're going to start feeling better soon, I promise. You just have to relax and let us take care of you. Kay? I made a mistake. It wasn't Jay that I saw in the LTD. The car's fine. Everything's fine, I promise. Just let us take care of you now. Kay? I'm right here. Everything's fine, I promise. Just let us help you. I love you. It's going to be okay."

"How fast can you get those peacekeepers, and get some sort of transport?" Zara asked Chief Zeredon.

"I've already got a call in to the academy, and my second in command is seeing what officers we can free up now. Give me a few hours, and we can be ready to go." he told her before motioning for Zara to follow him into the hallway. "What sort of chances do they have?" He didn't want to ask specifically about Kay, even if he thought they were out of Aileen's hearing. From what he had seen, he didn't see how that human had a chance at all.

"They get treatment, I think they've got a good chance, even that poor Agent Kay. They need people with more medical training there, though." Those poor things were going to be in severe pain for who knows how long even with treatment. The only thing that Zara could think of to do for them was to sedate them until the worst of the poison was out of their system, and for that, they needed someone with more training. "I'm going to call, and see about getting more supplies together. Let me know as soon as you know what transport you find so I can see about getting it moved."

"And I'm going to go home and pack a bag." Zara's mother called as she came out of the living room, followed by at least a dozen other relatives. "I might not have the training that you do, but at least I can fluff pillows or something."

"Thanks, Mom." Zara said. With those poor humans in the shape they were in, she was going to need all of the help that she could get.


	15. Chapter 15

"Can you scan that poor human again and show me the results?" Zara asked a bit later as she dodged around a cousin lagging bags, and one of her co-workers scurrying by with his nose burying in a list of needed medical supplies. "Are the others pretty much the same?"

"As far as I can tell. The twins are even starting to snap out of it a bit." X grumbled as he pointed the scanner at Kay, and then held the readings up for his cousin. "Kay, though... Zara, isn't there something else that you can do? Zed isn't going to be happy if he wakes up and finds out that his best agent got killed by a birthday cake!"

"We're getting ready to leave now. We're getting ready to leave now." Zara frowned slightly as she studied the readings. The poor human still wasn't responding as much as he needed to, and she didn't like the way his heart rhythm was looking at all. He wasn't on the brink of a cardiac arrest, not yet, but with the way things were looking, it wouldn't take much to send him crashing that way. This was going to be the hard part. Communications on the way to Earth were likely going to be touchy at best. "Are you sure there isn't a doctor somewhere that could deal with things until we get there? Or a nurse?"

"Zara, there isn't anyone. How bad is this? I thought you said that mix you had me feed them would work!" X glanced over to where Elle was resting, covered in blankets and still moaning lightly. If this didn't work, what was going to happen to her?

"It's working. It's working. The problem is with that poor Agent Kay, it's got a lot more work to do than with some of the others." Zara told him. "Isn't there a dentist somewhere? Who does that for the MIB?"

"Zed's been threatening to send agents down to Zealtor. Zara, how bad?"

"I'm going to tell you some things to do, and hopefully it's just taking a little while for things to kick in." Zara said. "Take a look at the scanner again, okay? See where it gives the heartrate?" She knew she couldn't talk her cousin through what would be needed to manage the rhythm, it took forever to get how to interpret that properly, but maybe if they could steady the rate, it would be good enough.

"It's ninety-five. Is that bad?" X asked anxiously. If Kay didn't make it, he would be blamed forever once the other agents woke up. And even though he complained about them, he didn't think he could live with that. And Kay was the most feared human in the universe. The idea of a birthday cake taking him out, well, it just wasn't right.

"It's not great, but I'll take it. He's got to be in a lot of pain right now. That's going to push his heartrate up." And Zara couldn't risk pain medicine. At the levels that would be needed, there was too much of a chance that it would compromise the poor man's breathing. If they had someone there with more training, who could put him on a vent if necessary, it would be one thing, but with just X and the worms, they couldn't take the chance. "See the green injector from the cart I had the worms bring down? How many are there of those?"

"At least a dozen." X said after a count. "Why?"

"Okay. That's the first thing. He's going to need one of those every four hours. Hopefully that will help some with getting his heart stable. You're going to need to give it in a different location, though. It needs to go into muscle to give it more time to absorb. Think you can manage it in the stomach? That's probably the easiest."

"The stomach? Are you sure that's a good idea? They were just poisoned."

"X, it goes in the muscle there, not in the actual stomach." Zara said as she rolled her eyes. "And yes, I'm sure. Do you think you can manage, or do I need to get a worm?"

"No! And let's just hope that Zed never finds out that you let them mess with the medicines to begin with. Zara, he's still ice cold." X said as he adjusted the blankets a bit so he could do what his cousin told him.

Not good, The poor man's circulation had to be still pretty bad. Worrying about loosing extremities was going to have to be secondary, though. At the moment, she needed to worry about keeping him alive. "I know but there isn't a lot we can do about it right now, besides keeping him wrapped up in the blankets. Have you got that medicine in?"

X nodded as he pulled Kay's shirt and jacket closed, and then tucked the blankets around him again. "Now what?"

"Okay, he's going to need one of those every four hours like I said. Hopefully that will be enough to keep him stable until I can get there and we can take a look. You're absolutely sure there's no one else who can help? What about someone who reads a lot of medical books?"

"Zara, how bad is this really?" X demanded.

"It's fixable. I promise it's fixable. It would just be a whole lot easier if there was someone there who had a bit more advanced training is all. But you and the worms are doing fine." Zara told him after a minute. She didn't need them panicking and thinking they were doing the wrong things. "I've had to work with a whole lot worse before. If I can manage to keep people alive with smashed limbs, and traumatic amputations, without so much as a roof, and couple of times without running water, then this shouldn't be hard at all."

After a moment, X slowly nodded. "What now?"

"His heartrate needs to be between sixty and a hundred. A hundred's getting up there, but I can live with it. Higher than that, though, and there are going to be some problems. You need to check him, at least every fifteen minutes, if not more. If that rate goes over a hundred, use the red injector in the neck. Below sixty, use the blue. Got that?"

"Red, over a hundred, blue below sixty. Got it." X said as he frantically scribbled a note on what was probably an important piece of paperwork. "Zara..."

"Hopefully it's just taking some time for him to stabilize. I'd love to know why he's so much worse than the rest of them, though. That just doesn't make sense." Zara told him. "X, if you have to do that more than three times, though, you're going to have to find a doctor somehow."

"Zara, I told you there isn't anyone. Believe me, if there was, they would already be here."

"There are hospitals in that town, aren't there? And hospitals are just full of doctors. Just visit the cafeteria and snag one."

"A human? Zara, do you know what Zed would do to me if I brought a human in?"

"You were just worried he would kill you if anything happened to that particular human, weren't you? Listen, I'll take full responsibility for it if it makes you feel better."

"Because that worked out so well before when you tried it with Chief Zeredon." X grumbled. "Zara, is it really that bad?"

"Hopefully not, but you need to be prepared, okay?" Zara said. "I promise, if your boss has a problem with it, he can take it up with me, not you. It's going to be okay. And we'll be there as fast as we can, okay?"

"How bad is it, really?" Edie was standing behind Zara as she turned after closing the communication for the moment.

"Not good, but hopefully it's just taking awhile for him to respond." Zara told her. "Where's..."

"I handed Aileen off to your aunt. She's trying to hold it together but..." Edie shook her head. "If he doesn't respond, though, how long does he have?" Edie didn't want to think about how her partner would take it if they got to Earth only to find out that Kay was gone.

"I don't know. And that's why I told X to get a human doctor if he has to." "But his chances?" "I wish I knew. What I'm having X do ought to fix things, but I have no idea why he's so much worse than all of the others to begin with. Figuring out what caused that would be a really big help. I'm doing everything I can, I promise, and I know that X is going to. My cousin might like to argue, but he knows me well enough that he'll listen if things get to the point where they do need to get a doctor in, I promise. This is still fixable."

Edie nodded, and then turned to go back and join her partner. Inside she was praying, though, for Zara to be right.


	16. Chapter 16

"Do any of you have a clue where I can find a timer or something?" X asked the worms as he moved away from Kay and went over to check on Elle. "Hey, Little Ears. Come on, don't you want to wake up now and yell at me for something? My entire family's on their way here, and you know what my mother's going to be like." Nothing, though, and she was still freezing, even though it didn't seem to be as bad as Kay. Why in the world weren't they getting better? Rationally, X knew it hadn't been long enough to see a change, but still, he just wanted his partner to open those beedy eyes and start yelling. He hadn't seen Elle this quiet since he arrived on the planet and it was more than a bit alarming.

"The coffeemaker has a timer."

"Want us to go and get it?"

"Not that we're going to make coffee with it."

"Fine." They probably would make coffee but he wasn't going to complain, not with how the worms had been helping. He couldn't believe that those four pests were actually being useful for a change.

"I can't believe this." Frank said as he looked up from where he was sniffing around by Zed. "And who's going to protect the planet until they all get better?" Not that he thought that some of the agents were going to get better. With the way that Kay was looking, well, he had a feeling he was going to need to get his suit cleaned real soon.

"Help's on the way." It would be at least a day before it could get there, though, and with the number of criminals that we're running wild in the city, X didn't want to think of what might happen before then. They were going to have to do a ton of neuralyzing over this. He just hoped that no one was doing anything important this week that they didn't want to forget. "Do any of you know how to pull up agent lists?" Surely he wasn't the only agent left standing.

"Sure, but Elle got all of the agents who were in town."

"What about the Hollywood agents? They're nice."

"They wouldn't know what end of a weapon they were supposed to shoot from either." X grumbled. No way was he bringing that group on incompetents into this situation. With a shudder, he realized that he would need to contact them, though. Incompetent or not, with the main agents out of commission, they were going to have to figure out something to protect their alien clients until help arrived. Who knows where else the alien criminals could be attacking? And what in the world was he going to do about the tourists? He remembered now that Elle had scheduled the party around a lull in incoming and outgoing flights, but sooner or later, he knew a ship would show up, wanting to land, or people were going to want to go home. And even if he could deal with letting tourists through, there was no way to protect the visitors once they were there. Oh, this was a total disaster. At least Zara was on her way, though. He would let her handle breaking the news to Zed when he woke up. She had the training to handle the explosion he was sure that this mess would cause with his boss.

"Got the coffeemaker. What time do you want it set for?" One of the worms asked as he came hurrying in with the appliance in question.

"Zara said we had to check Kay at least every fifteen minutes, and he has to have a shot every four hours. See if you can set it for that." X told them.

"Can do."

"Fifteen minutes, that's one vanilla almond."

"And four hours is sixteen. Not that we're going to drink sixteen pots of coffee." another worm tried to reassure X.

"Not going to drink coffee at all."

"What do you need us to do?"

"Yeah, we want to help!"

"Okay." X couldn't believe he was going to have to do this, but what other choice did he have? The worms were the only assistance at hand. And they did drink all of that coffee. At least he could be reassured they wouldn't run out of energy. What in the world should he tell them to do, though? "The other agents. We need to get a list of agents that weren't here, and weren't effected." he said after a moment's thought. Should he call any agents who were out on assignment back to headquarters? But if he did, that would leave the areas where they were at unprotected. He could figure that out later, though. The important thing right now was to alert the other agents. "We need that list, and what about a list of resident aliens?" the JeeDangians wouldn't have a clue as to what aliens might be friendly, unlike the agents. They needed to alert the friendly residents, and somehow get them off the streets.

"Sure." "Zed has a list in his office, of people to call if there's an emergency."

"What? Why didn't someone call me?" Frank demanded.

"You're probably on some sort of do not call list." X muttered just as the twins' monitor panel beeped. "No. Please tell me that isn't..."

"Ship wanting to land. Do you think we ought to answer?"

"Not like we have a choice. The rest of you go and get those lists. And someone see about getting some more blankets. There have to be some left somewhere in the building." X ordered as one of the worms hit the button to open the signal on the complicated monitoring panel. "What do you want?"

"I need directions to land." the pilot of the ship said with a friendly wave. "I know we're a little early, but we made good time around Pluto. I hope that isn't going to be a problem."

"Just perfect. Why don't you head back for Pluto then? The planet's closed today."

"What do you mean the planet's closed?"

"I mean just what I said. It's closed. Someone littered. We're cleaning it up. The entire place is messy, very messy. No one can land until we get through sweeping up. Go away and call back tomorrow to see if we're done. Not that I think we will be." He didn't want to think of how long it was going to take to pull headquarters back together once the other agents were on their feet.

"But I've got a shuttle full of people on their honeymoon. Their booked to see Niagra Falls. Surely that's okay."

"No. No, you can't see that. It's the messiest place of all." X said, as he recalled a show he had spotted Jay watching one day. "Some magician got it and turned it purple, as part of some little human trick. I don't know how we're going to get that thing cleaned up. No, go away and call tomorrow."

"But what about all of these people and their honeymoons?"

"Do they want to spend their honeymoon sweeping up? Because that doesn't sound like how I would want to start a marriage." X said. "Show them the rings of Saturn or something. We're cleaning as fast as we can."

"Lyndon isn't going to like that." Frank commented as X slammed the communication shut.

"Lyndon won't like it if those honeymooners don't live to finish their honeymoon either, which with the way the criminals are running loose is likely if we let them land." X replied. And if the head of the Alien Rights Commission showed up to cause trouble, he could always repeat what had netted him suspension number two. He was sure that Zed would take it a whole lot better than Chief Zeredon did. "Make yourself useful. Keep an eye on them." X ordered the dog as the worms came hurrying back with blankets and lists. "Bark if they get worse. Worms, let's see that list of agents." Even if they couldn't pull them away from where they were now, maybe they could offer some suggestions for what to do until help arrived.


	17. Chapter 17

"All of the agents were poisoned? How did this happen?" Agent S demanded as X faced the monitor screen in Zed's office several hours later, after he and the worms had somehow managed to get a hook-up arranged with some of the MIB's remaining agents, on-world and off. "What about Kay?"

"Kay, we're doing what we can about that." X grumbled. "And hopefully my cousin will be here soon with medical help. She seemed to know what this is. I'm sure that she'll be able to fix it once she shows up. Right now, I'm trying to figure out what assets the MIB has available. Agent D?" He turned towards the monitor connected to MIB Nashville and the fluffy-haired female agent in charge. They were the closest remaining agents, even though X thought they were only a step or two above MIB Hollywood.

"Right." Agent D replied. "I put my agents on alert as soon as you called and let us know what was going on. If you need us in New York, Agent X, we would be more than willing to do whatever you need. There are only the twelve of us here right now, though. We got a report of an unauthorized landing out by Branson from one of our clients. I have four agents there checking it out."

Twelve agents, sixteen if he wanted to pull the four in Missouri. Not good. "What about resident aliens?"

"We have around forty permanent residents in the city right now, and another ten or so that are out on tour." She said as she consulted the papers in front of her. "There are maybe fifty or so tourists, as well. A tour group just came in yesterday, and set up out at the Opry. I've got Agents G and T on their way there now to secure the building, and Miss M is getting as many of the residents as possible moved out there. We're a peaceful little town. We've never had a lick of trouble, not like you get up there, but we thought it was best to be prepared. Agent V's doing the same out in Branson. We've got another fifteen or twenty aliens out there. The only problem I see is Graceland. We had a bus leave not more than a couple of hours ago heading for there. The Colonel's going to try to catch up with them, and get them off the road and somewhere secure, but who knows how long that's going to take."

"So, basically you have your hands full?"

"They're pretty full, but if you need us, we'll do whatever we can to help. They don't call this the volunteer state for nothing, Agent X." Agent D said. "The group we have here are good people. We help them out, guide them the right way, maybe make sure that the younger kids don't get taken advantage of. They don't need a whole lot, as far as policing goes. An emergency like this, they're going to do whatever they can to help make things easy for us."

"Easy or not, there's still close to a hundred or more aliens that you're in charge of." X said. "For now, hold your positions, and keep the residents and tourists in place. Please tell me that there aren't any tourists that might be wanting to catch a flight home soon?"

"No, sir. We got real lucky there. Like I said, this group just checked in yesterday, and I think that the group headed for Graceland isn't scheduled to leave for at least another week. Isn't there something that we could do to help? I hate to think of everyone sick like that up there and us not at least doing something for them."

"I don't suppose there's a change that someone there has medical training, is there?" X asked. The agents, and especially Kay, seemed stable so far, but still, they had a long time to go before Zara would get there, and having someone with proper training would be more than a bit of a comfort.

"The Colonel's the best about patching up minor things, but we don't get a lot of call for doctoring around here. Anything major, we've always sent to the main headquarters. I could have Miss M check out the records when she gets to the Opry. Maybe one of the tourists has some training, but I don't remember seeing any doctors on the lists when they checked in here."

"You know, if you're having a problem, we would be happy to take Agent Kay off your hands, Agent X." Agent E, head of the Hollywood agents, offered.

"I don't suppose that you have someone out there with medical training by some chance, then? X demanded. "

"No, but I'm sure we could figure out something."

"Thank you, then. I'm already figuring out something, thank you very much, and at least I had advice from my cousin to help me figure things out. I'll be sure to share your generous offer to take her boyfriend off of our hands when Agent Kay's actual girlfriend gets here. I'm sure she'll want to have words with you about that little offer." X grumbled.

"Aileen's coming?" E asked with a disappointed look.

"With my cousin. They should be here soon. What about the situation out there? Any sign of trouble yet? It's a disaster here." "Nothing yet, but I've got agents out, pulling our clients in now. Annette and SpaceDemon are opening up their beach house. We're going to stash as many as we can there for the duration." E told him. "We were lucky. The last batch of tourists left here two days ago, so we've just got the locals right now, and half of them are on location. Should we start calling those in?"

"Leave them where they are for now. We don't want innocent aliens out on the road if we can avoid it." X said. "What about the rest of you?"

"I have my group on lock-down right now." The tall black man that was in charge of Hawaii replied. "I'm not sure how long we can count on that blue furball obeying the lockdown order, but I gave it. Hawaii's as secure as it ever is for the moment. Should I arrange transport back to headquarters? The aliens here seem to manage pretty well on their own, without my having to stand right over them. If I explain the situation to Nani, I'm sure they can handle things for a few days."

"Or we would be happy to seen someone over." the head of the Japanese branch of the MIB said. "Now, how bad did you say Agent Kay was?"

"Not you." X snapped as he glared at her. "Every agent with functional ears is still holding the karoke machine you sent over against you."

"Really, are they being that petty? How was I to know that Agent U had that bad of a voice?" Sonomi demanded

"We might have bought that, if you hadn't sent the bottle of sake along with the karoke machine. Just stay where you are, and deal with your monsters and your robots on the loose or something." X grumbled.

"What about me?" Agent C demanded. "What am I supposed to do? Who's going to look after all of these tourists down here? What if something happens?"

"Well, what do you think that Zed hired you for?" X demanded. He wasn't going to mention that he had always suspected that another bottle of sake shipped over from Japan was the explanation for why Zed had hired people like C and U. "You're in charge of those alien tourists until we can get help here."

"Me?" C stuttered. He could handle things normally, but only because he knew he could call for help at any time. "You can't leave me in charge! I wouldn't leave me in charge!"

"There's no one else down there, now is there? That kind of leaves the undersea tourists to you, doesn't it?" X said.

"But I can't protect them! What if someone like Quintoon comes along again? You said a bunch of criminals were on the loose! I just bet he's one of them!" C started to shake harder at the thought.

"But you have to protect them." one of the worms said. "You're the only one who can."

"And I'll bet Zed would be really impressed if you did a good job." Another worm added.

"Yeah, he might even give you a promotion, and let you come back to the city!" the first worm continued.

"But how do I protect them?" C asked. The idea of getting back to the city sure sounded good, and it wasn't like he didn't want to protect the tourists. He just didn't have a clue as to how. Basically, except for the incident with Quintoon, his job had been to check tourists in and out. He was pretty much a desk clerk in a submarine.

"What about the trench? Doesn't the MIB have a place there for emergencies?" the second worm asked.

"Yeah. I remember that. Zed was complaining about having to stock it." the first worm said.

"The trench." C hit a button to pull up a map of the area. "You think I ought to take them there? These people are on their vacations. They aren't going to be happy."

"Well, they aren't going to be happy if they end up attacked by some undersea criminal either, now are they? Tell them it's part of some tour the MIB is offering. I don't care what you tell them. Just get them somewhere out of the way, and stay there until we can get more help onto the planet. Does anyone else have any issues?" "

"X, got a problem!" Frank called as he came hurrying in.

"Yeah. Big problem!" a third worm said as he came in after the dog.

"Just perfect. Everyone, just say where you are for the moment." X ordered. "Keep things under control, and I'll alert you as soon as we have more help here. What's wrong now?" he demanded as he cut the communications off, and turned to deal with Frank and the worms. How could things get worse?


	18. Chapter 18

"X, you've got to do something!" The worm that had remained to keep an eye on the agents called as X came hurrying out to see what disaster had struck this time. "Something's wrong with Kay!"

"Something's really wrong. Do you know if these suits can be drip dried? Want to look my best for the fu..." Frank started to say before the worms pounced on him again. They weren't sure if the line with Aileen might be open still or not, but they weren't going to take any chances.

X bit off a curse in his own language as he saw what had the worms so freaked, and Frank thinking about appropriate funeral suits. Kay was shaking uncontrollably, the pillows and blankets around him the only thing that was preventing him from giving himself a major head injury, as he jerked, and his head slammed back against the fluffy, feather-filled material. "One of you, go and get more pillows. Get anything soft you can find." X swore again, loudly, as he dropped down by Kay, grabbing the scanner and pointing it at him. Zara had said anything over a hundred was bad, but he had a feeling a hundred and fifty heartrate was a special category of bad. He reached for his communicator and started to try to get his cousin. It was tricky at times, getting a connection during inter-stellar travel but maybe he would be lucky, and Zara would be somewhere where she could get a signal.

By the time the worm had returned with more pillows and another blanket, Kay was lying still, so still that at first it looked like he was dead. "X?" the worm asked anxiously as he came hurrying over. What were they going to do if something happened to Kay? Aileen would be brokenhearted if she arrived and it was too late.

"Get the pillows around him. If that starts up again, he's probably going to give himself a broken bone." X muttered as he looked at the scanner, and debated hitting it when the reading that it showed wasn't what he wanted. As soon as the shaking had stopped, he had given Kay the injection like Zara had told him to do, but his heartrate was still way too high, hovering around the one hundred rate that Zara had told him was getting into a danger zone. What in the world was he going to do, though? And what if some of the others ended up like this as well? His head shot up as he looked in the direction of his partner. No, Elle was still right where he had left her, though, tucked under the blankets, and thank heavens still, instead of shaking like Kay. And when he looked around the room, he couldn't see any other agents seizing either. That still left the dilemma of what to do about Kay, though. Zara still hadn't answered. Obviously she was in a region of space without call service. Just his luck. His training with the peacekeepers back home had covered seizures, and he remembered that book that the MIB had issued him mentioning something about them as well, when he had been bored and thumbed through it one day, but still, all it had said was to keep the person from hurting themselves, not how to manage when you were in a situation like this, with all of the medical staff poisoned, and help still who knows how far away. "I'm going to have to get a doctor." Where in the world was the closest hospital, though? He couldn't afford to be gone too long, no matter how well it seemed like the worms were managing. Sooner or later, a batch of vanilla almond would distract them.

"A doctor?" one of the worms asked. "But there aren't any... Do you mean a human doctor? Zed isn't going to like that."

"Zed would like something happening to his best agent even less." And he was holding Zara to taking the blame this time, no matter how cute and innocent she looked. "Do you know where the closest hospital is?" He demanded, as he glared at the dog.

"What about this one?" another worm asked, and he pulled up a picture of a hospital on the twins' monitor. "Kay chases people through there all the time. Bet there are a lot of doctors there."

"Yeah, that's a nice one." the fourth worm said as he trotted over to join his friend. "Kay almost saw his brother there once."

"He has a brother?" Did X really want to learn details about Kay's family tree, though? From the little he knew, it might rival his for confusion. The hospital did look big, though, and was probably full of doctors. How hard would it be to grab one? "Watch them." He ordered the worms as he dug in his pocket for the keys to the SUV. Hopefully he could be there and back before things could get even worse. "And if my cousin calls, tell her we have a disaster on her hands!"

"Wait, you're leaving us alone?" Frank demanded. "Are you crazy? What if someone else gets sick? Or what if Kay..."

"The worms are in charge. Obey the worms."

"Obey the... You're leaving them in charge?"

"They managed before. I'll hurry. Just keep an eye on them." X said as he passed the instructions that Zara had given him earlier, about the drugs to use to one of the worms. "Just try to do what the list says, if he gets worse. I'll be back as fast as I can." And surely, if he could get his hands on a doctor, this was still fixable. True, a human doctor wouldn't know what to do with an alien poison, but wouldn't they have to have a clue as to how to keep Kay alive until someone with experience with that sort of thing got there?

X was ready to hit the dashboard, and give the garage agent a heart attack when he recovered from the poison. The hospital was packed. Every human in the area had apparently picked today to become horribly accident prone. The entire parking lot was packed. How in the world was he ever going to get his hands on a doctor, if he couldn't even find a parking space?

Just as he was about to do serious damage to the vehicle, or to the next human, who cut him off for a parking space, he spotted an older couple, coming out of a side door of the hospital, the man wearing a nametag with a little smiley face, that X swore said something about a doctor. He jerked the wheel to the side, and pulled it to a stop, half on the sidewalk, right in front of the two humans. Yes, the tag did say doctor, Doctor George Weaver, Convention Attendee. Perfect. Finally something was going his way.

"Young man, what in the world do you think you're doing?" The woman demanded as X hopped out and came over to them. "This is the sidewalk, not a parking lot!"

"I'm stopped, not parked. There's a difference." X repeated something he had heard Zara say once. "Wait, you are a medical doctor, right, and not a doctor of English or that horrible musical theater or something, right?"

"My husband's a neurologist." The woman, Rose said. "Why?"

"That works." It would have been nice to get a poison control specialist, but didn't neurologists deal with the brain? He probably knew something about seizures.. X snagged him by the arm, and tossed him into the back seat of the SUV before he could even let out a scream.

"Young man, what do you think you're doing?" Rose was in the front passenger seat before X could even get behind the wheel, glaring at him in a way that reminded him uncomfortably of his mother.

"I'm sorry, but we kind of need a doctor and my cousin said to grab the first one I saw." Did he have time to get rid of her? No, who knows what he might run into on the way back to headquarters. He would just have to take her with them. And how bad could it be? Maybe a new friend would distract his mother from attempts to play matchmaker for him? Somehow, he didn't think all of those poisoned humans would proved to be enough of a distraction.

"What? Young man, are you in the mob?" Rose demanded, as X clicked the locks on the door to make sure the humans couldn't escape, and then pulled out, cutting off an ambulance, and earning him shouts that would have done his cousin proud as he sped onto the street, heading back the way he had came.

"The mob? If you'll remind me of it later, I might be. That's better than the last cover story Agent Jay came up with." X said. Now if things would just be the way he left them back at headquarters, then maybe they had a chance of somehow getting through this mess in one piece.


	19. Chapter 19

"X!" One of the worms came rushing up as soon as the group spotted X, leading George and Rose into headquarters. "Did you find a doctor?"

"No, I just kidnapped two people for the fun of it. Of course I found a doctor!" X shouted. What in the world was wrong now? He could tell from the expression on the worms' face that something serious was going on. A cold chill rushed over him. What if Kay was... "What happened?"

"He had another seizure." Frank said as he came trotting up. "Are you sure that you don't know anything about getting these suits cleaned? I'll bet there will be a lot of babes at the..."

"No, no need to clean the suit." a worm said as they pounced, and clamped long fingers around the dog's mouth to keep him from saying the word funeral. What if Aileen could hear? Or what if Kay heard and it made him worse?

"We did just what your cousin told you to do." another worm said.

"He isn't getting better, though. You can fix him, can't you?" the fourth worm said as he looked up at George reading the name tag that identified him as the doctor X had collected.

"What in the world is going on here? Why aren't these people in a hospital?" George demanded as he looked around the room, somehow forcing his mind to block out the aliens. This many people, ill or injured was more than enough for him to cope with without having to deal with the sudden reality that aliens were on the planet after all.

"Because they were all poisoned with an alien toxin. A human hospital wouldn't have a clue how to deal with it." X went over to Kay and knelt down, picked up the scanner and pointed it at him for a minute before biting off a curse in his language at the readings. The worms were right. This was bad. He pulled himself to his feet and hurried over to the two humans. "We've got help on the way, but we've got a little problem and who knows how long of a wait until they get here."

"I'd say you have more than a little problem." Rose said as she looked around the room. All of those poor people. It looked like that railyard scene from Gone with the Wind.

"I'm trying to be optimistic." X grumbled as he snagged George by the arm and drug him over to Kay. "This seems to be our main problem. My cousin walked me through an antidote." And the antidote seemed like it was working. The twins were looking better anyway, and some of the humans who had been moaning were quiet, and hopefully sleeping the effects of the poison off. "But for some reason, he isn't doing well. Zara thinks it's just taking awhile but he's already had two seizures."

"Seizures?" George looked up at him for a moment before dropping down by his new patient. He had his penlight, anyway, about the only medical equipment that he had on him when he and his wife were unceremoniously snatched from the hospital sidewalk. He got it out, and carefully pushed Kay's eyes back, flashing it to check the pupil response. "When did the seizures start?" he asked as he looked up for a moment before continuing his exam as best he could. The pupils were reacting, but the pulse was way too rapid, and the man was gasping for breath, his lips starting to take on a bluish tone.

"The first one, maybe an hour or so ago. Worms, when was the other one?" X demanded.

"A vanilla almond." one said.

"Yeah, maybe fifteen minutes ago." a second worm chimed in. "It lasted forever. We just tried to keep the pillows around him so he didn't hurt himself. That was what we were supposed to do, right?"

"Is he going to be okay?" a third worm added with a worried look at the doctor working over the MIB's top agent.

"He needs to be in a hospital." George said just as he spotted the scanner X had used, the vital signs still visible. He frowned as he saw the heart rhythm. This wasn't good, and he wasn't sure, even if he had a top of the line ICU right there if the man was savable or not. "I suppose you're going to say that's not possible, though."

"Possible, but probably not the best idea." X said. If there was no other choice though, he would do it. And Zed was close to Kay. How angry could he get, if risking a human hospital saved the senior agent's life? "My cousin's hopefully going to be here soon." Who knows, if they risked letting Zara fly the ship, he could probably expect her at any time. "She knows all about this sort of thing, and I'm sure she's bringing a bunch of other people that know how to deal with it too. Isn't there something you can do, to at least try to buy a little time until they get here?"

"Maybe. Bring that cart over here, would you?" George murmured as he went over the readings again. Heart rate was though the ceiling and the breathing was too, but the poor man wasn't getting enough oxygen. The rhythm was shaky enough that he could arrest at any moment, and his blood pressure was heading for stroke level. They probably wouldn't even have time to get him to the hospital, in this condition. If something wasn't done fast, he was going to die, and he didn't even want to think about what might happen if there was another seizure. As soon as the cart was pulled over, he started to pull open drawers, and gather the supplies he could recognize. "Is there a translation program for some of this?" he demanded after looking at the drugs. He could recognize one or two, but as for the others, he wasn't sure enough to risk it.

"Right here." one of the worms said, as he scooped up the scanner and hit a few buttons before handing it back to George. "Can we help?"

"Yeah, we want to help!" the other three repeated.

"I need oxygen, and see if you can find some sort of pole to get this hooked on." George told them as he started getting an IV line worked into place in Kay's arm. Honestly, the man probably needed to be on a ventilator if not full life support, but under the circumstances, with no more help than he had, he wasn't going to risk that unless it was a matter of life and death. And there were several drugs that were similar to the medications that he was familiar with, and would use for similar problems. There might be a chance that he could pull him out of this. He didn't want to think of what the odds were. As soon as he had the IV in place, he pulled out one of the injectors, and after a moment to figure out how to use it, injected the contents into the line as soon as X had it hooked up to some sort of makeshift pole.

"Make sure that thing's steady." George ordered the alien as the worms came hurrying back from the medical lab with the oxygen hook- ups and any other equipment that they thought might be useful. "Bring that over here." he ordered them as he sorted through the supplies, trying to get things organized in the way he preferred. If the man he was working on went into cardiac arrest like he was expecting, he wanted to have things where he could get to them. He looked at the scanner again, and then selected another injector, this time pressing the business end to Kay's neck, to push the drug in faster. Why in the world wasn't he reacting the way he should be?

While George worked, and poor X panicked, Rose wandered around the room, trying to think of something that she could do to help. All of these people, lying there so sick, surely she could do something. Suddenly, she stopped, her hand flying to her mouth as she dropped to the floor beside one of the blanket-covered heaps. "Laurie?


	20. Chapter 20

"Laurie?" Rose whispered as she reached with a shaking handtowards the daughter she had reluctantly considered lost for years. "Laurie?" Her daughter was ice cold to the touch, even with all of the blankets wrapped around her, and she was deathly still, but thank goodness, she was still breathing. "George, that odd nephew of yours, who keeps saying that Laurie was kidnapped by aliens? Maybe he doesn't need to be locked up after all."

Laurie? X looked at the woman hovering by his partner's side in puzzlement before turning a shade of pale green under his human mask as something hit him. Elle's real name was Laurel, and hadn't she said something about her father being a doctor, once when they were discussing relatives? He bit back a groan. Somehow, out of all of the doctors in New York, he had managed to kidnap his partner's father, with her mother along for the ride. She would have his ears for sure when she woke up.

"Rose what are you talking about?" her husband asked without looking up from where he was working over Kay. The oxygen was helping a bit, but the man still wasn't reacting nearly as much as they needed him to. If that blood pressure and heart rate didn't settle down, he was either going to have a stroke or go into cardiac arrest.

"Never mind, George. You just take care of that poor man. I'll handle this." Rose said after a look up and catching sight of the trouble her husband was having with his current patient. Being a doctor's wife as long as she had been, she knew about triage, and treating the sickest patients first, even if one of the other patients was their own missing child.

George nodded absently. "When did you say help is going to be here?" Part of him thought that they ought to try getting the man he was treating to a hospital if they could get him tothe point where the trip wouldn't kill him. Having IV access and oxygen was better than nothing ,but the way his current patient was looking, he needed more, and soon. And with the number of other victims... "How many of the others are this bad?"

"Kay's the worst." X said as he looked around the room. A few of the humans were moaning again, but at least there wasn't anymore throwing up, at least not yet. "Some of the others are pretty sick. Zed, U, a couple of the little paperpushers that people step on from time to time when they aren't looking down. Kay's the worst, though." Kay was the only one that he was seriously worried might not make it, even though he didn't dear speak that fear out loud. Losing Kay, he didn't want to think of the damage that would do to the MIB, losing their top agent and one of the founding fathers. When he got his hands on the person responsible for this... He needed to start investigating the attack, who knows what evidence could get lost with a delay, but until there were more people there to tend to the sick agents, he had to focus on that. Zara had drummed into him more than a few times when he had the misfortune to work crime scenes where his cousin was providing care, that saving lives came before solving crimes. Zara had been firm enough about that, that Urexal, the idiot who made U look competent, still cringed and dove for cover when he saw her coming. "What else do you need? I'm sure I could grab another human or two if you need more help."

"None of the others are this bad?"

"Not even close." X said. The security footage. He needed to pull that. It didn't make sense for someone in as good a shape as he knew that Kay was in to end up that sick. Something else had to be going on. Maybe if he could figure out what, then it would help Elle's father figure out how to fix Kay?

"And your cousin told you how to make something to neutralize the poison? Does she know what she's doing?" The fact that this was an alien toxin was the one thing that was causing him to hesitate about moving his patient to the hospital. An unknown poison, who knows if traditional treatments could make it worse. If the man could last until someone with experience got there, though. That was the problem.

"Someone asked her that once. I think their bones finally healed. I trust Zara way more than I trust the loon Zed hired as a doctor, and he's supposed to be some sort of genius. If she says the the mix she had me get into them will take care of the poison, it's going to do it. The only thing she seemed worried about was how long it would take, to take affect with Kay."

George nodded as he thought. From the brief glance he had had of the room, the other victims were sick and fairly miserable looking, but hopefully not in immediate danger. If he could just get this one to stabilize, they might be okay until more and apparently alien help arrived. "Let's give the drugs a little more time. I honestly don't know why this isn't doing the trick."

X looked at Kay for a moment before realizing there was nothing else he could do, and he slowly drifted over to his partner and her hovering mother.

"I can't believe that crazy nephew of yours was right about aliens kidnapping her." Rose murmured as she stroked Elle's forehead, "The boy has major problems, after all. He pronounces everyone who darkens the door of his ambulance dead. I'm surprised that little head of the hospital hasn't killed him. Who would ever think that he was right about something like that?"

"Aliens did not kidnap her!" X exclaimed.

"What about Edgar the Bug?" one of the worms asked.

"She escaped from him on her own. That doesn't count. And I wasn't on this planet at the time. I have an alibi!"

"So, you're an alien? What do you really look like?" Rose asked.

X hesitated. Zed wouldn't be happy about humans finding out more about aliens, but after a moment, he tugged the mask off, letting out a slight sigh as he got his full range of vision and hearing back.

Rose studied him carefully, green skin, big, pointed ears, large, three pupilled eyes, but even with that, the alien wasn't hard on the eyes at all, certainly worlds nice than her son George's last date before he became Georgianna. Pointy eared grandchildren. That would be absolutely adorable.

X gulped as he saw how Elle's mother was looking at him, like she was sizing him up for the altar. If she was, and then when his mother got there... Elle was going to have his ears for sure over this.

"Come on." He snagged the closest worm. "The rest of you help them. We need to alert the resident aliens to stay in their houses until help gets here." And he needed out of the range of matrimonially minded mothers fast


	21. Chapter 21

"Agent X?" A voice called the next morning, causing the exhausted alien agent to look up. He had shed the rest of the human suit, going for what little comfort he could get. They weren't even halfway through the list of resident aliens who needed to be alerted, with the other branches constantly calling in, and ships having to be warned off. He was honestly surprised that Lyndon from the Alien Rights Commission hadn't called already, trying to file some sort of complaint.

"Hey, Mrs. Redgick!" one of the worms called from where he was fluffing Agent Jay's pillows. "Shouldn't you be locked up at home?"

"We're still calling the H's." the worm who had been helping X said. "They're Rs."

"What happened?" Mrs. Redgick asked, her eyes going wide under her human suit as she spotted the human one of the worms was fussing over. "Agent Jay?" Ever since he had helped, when little Reggie was born, she had been fond of the young agent. "Never mind what happened. What can we do to help?"

"Check with Elle's mother." X told her, waving a clawed hand in Rose's direction. Help, that was just what they could really use at the moment, and right behind the Redgicks he could see Agent Kay's Blastulan friend, his human wife and daughter, a group of Alcidian cabbies and at least one Arquillian. Maybe things were looking up if they had a few more people to tend to the rest of the sick agents. Elle's father had been at Kay's side all night, trying to keeping him alive and halfway stable, leabing the rest of the agents for Rose, three worms and a reluctant Frank to try to tend. They could definitely use all of the help that they could get.

"I'm sure that I can find something for them to do." Rose said. All of those poor people, most of them moaning in pain now, but she didn't dare ask George to try medicating any of them, not even their own daughter, without more people to help. "When did you say that cousin of yours is going to be here?"

"Hopefully soon." Regular travel would take at least a standard day, but in an emergency, X knew that time could be shortened. The only question was how far his cousin was willing to push things to get there faster, and how much Agent Kay's girlfriend was willing to go along with. X pulled out his communicator again to try to reach Zara and Rose started to direct the other aliens in how to tend to the sick humans.

Nothing, though. The ship had to be in an area of space without reception still. Just his luck. If Zara was still out of communications range, who knows how long it would take for them to make it the rest of the way there. Had Chief Zeredon actually made Zara follow the interstellar traffic laws? He didn't think she had bothered with those since she was…. Well, he couldn't actually remember the his cousin had bothered with those, honestly. What in the world was he going to do until she could get there, though? He couldn't do anything about the alien criminals running wild and he couldn't do anything for the ill humans beyond pillow fluffing. He could see about getting the investigation into the poisoning stated, though, now that it looked like none of the humans were in serious danger of death. Well, there was Kay, but he had a doctor right there to deal with him. Surely that would be enough.

"Come on. I need someone to get the security footage pulled." X growled as he grabbed a worm. And anyway, maybe going over the footage would help with the Kay situation. There had to be a reason that he was so much sicker than the other agents. If he could figure that out, surely it would help Elle's father, and Zara when she got there, work out how to treat him.

Before X could get to the equipment needed to see the footage from the party, there was a clattering in the hallway, and a second later, Jeebs came running in.

"Do you know how crazy things are out there?" Jeebs demanded. Normally, he had no problem with law breakers, but he sure did when the laws they were breaking were being smashed in the middle of his shop. He had been robbed three times already and where were the agents? Kay had never gone this long without dropping in to accuse him of something, and to blast his head. "I've been robbed, and even worse, my brother's in town! And what are you going to do about it?"

"I'm expecting my entire family, hopefully any time now. One relative, count yourself lucky. We can help you with that, though." X said as he went over to a console and quickly printed a form before handing it to Jeebs. "Here you go."

"Change of Address form? What good is this going to do?"

"If that doesn't work, try this." X said as he passed him another form.

"Last Will and Testament?"

"Remember us fondly." X said with a smirk.

"Are you crazy?" Jeebs shouted. "Where's Kay?" And then suddenly he noticed the blanket covered heaps covering the floor, that he had managed to miss entirely in his panic over his brother's arrival. "What happened to all of them?" Was that Kay with someone who looked suspiciously like a human doctor hovering at his side? Something had taken down the MIB's top agent? Maybe if he shared that news with his brother... "Hey, is he going to die?"

"No!" It was probably a good thing that Jeebs had shown up at headquarters, even if he really didn't want to deal with him. It would save them the trouble of having to send someone out to find and arrest him, though. True, Jeebs was more of a nuisance than anything, but at the moment, they didn't even have the resources to cope with nuisances.

""Are you sure about that?" Jeebs asked as he drifted a bit closer. Kay was the only agent hooked up to equipment, and an amount of it that just shouted dying to him. "Because he doesn't look so good." And all of the used injectors around him couldn't be a good sign. "So, who took out the MIB's best of the best?" This was definitely going to be a valuable piece of information, to the right person.

"That was what I was just on my way to find out, but I can make a stop at the holding cells first. Move it Jeebs." X caught him by the collar and almost pulled him off of his sneakered feet as he started to drag him out.

"You're arresting me? What for? I haven't done anything wrong!" Jeebs protested.

"What am I arresting you for? Breathing, being a general nuisance, and whatever I can come up with later. My cousin's coming, and she's got a good imagination. I'm sure she can help me think up a few more charges. Let's go, Jeebs. You wanted to avoid your brother, didn't you? He isn't likely to look for you in the MIB holding cells, now is he? Let's go!


	22. Chapter 22

"X?" One of the worms called as he waved from the monitoring station. "Call for you. Lyndon! He doesn't sound happy!"

"Just perfect." X stalked over to take the call, leaving his latest attempt to get the security footage running. Why in the world hadn't Little Ears invited the head of the Alien Rights Commission to Zed's party? Then he would be safely poisoned instead of on the loose and planning to cause who knows what trouble. "Yes?"

"Agent X? Where is Zed?" Lyndon demanded as soon as X appeared on the communicator screen. "Do you know what's going on out there? The entire city's in chaos! Innocent aliens have been attacked! They've been robbed! They've been... And where is the MIB? Let me speak to Zed this instant!"

"Zed's taking a sick day."

"A sick day?" Lyndon said with a frown. He had heard that it was the head of the MIB's birthday, and he knew from experience the sort of parties humans threw. He wasn't sure how in the world his cousin had ever managed to clean up after the butcher's party, he thought it was called, that a group of humans held in his bowling alley. Still, Lyndon would have never thought Zed was the type to have a party like that. "Zed's... Agent X, do you really expect me to believe that the head of the MIB had a party where he indulged so much that now he's sick? Zed's more than old enough to know better!"

"To be fair, the party was Agent Jay's idea. I told them we should have gone with a tie. No one's ever ended up needing emergency treatment for a tie." X tapped his clawed foot impatiently as he talked. At this rate he was never going to get that security footage pulled.

"I don't know. Agent Kay's brother came close." One of the worms said as he staggered by with a pile of pillows. "Kay was watching him one day and said he though the tie that clown fellow his brother works with was wearing was going to send him to the hospital."

Lyndon wasn't even going to try to figure out what the worm was talking about. "Okay, if Zed decided he didn't want to act his age, fine. Let me talk to Agent Kay."

"He's taking a sick day."

"What?" What in the world did X think he was trying to pull, saying Agent Kay was taking a sick day? Kay never took sick days, and surely wasn't the type who would indulge in any of the behaviors that those humans did down in the bowling alley. His cousin was still trying to figure out what it was they put in the ball return and how to remove it. "Agent X, might I remind you who is responsible for your position with the MIB? You can't just tell me some sort of insane story about Agent Kay over-indulging at Zed's birthday party and expect me to believe it! Now I want to talk to the agent in charge now! We have a crisis out here!"

"You are talking to the agent in charge. You're actually talking to the only agent at the moment. And believe me, I know we have a problem out there." X said. "The problem is that we have more of a problem in here. Everyone here except me and the worms are sick with some sort of poison at the moment, so I think that tops what you've got going on out there."

"What?" Lyndon's little eyes went wider than X imagined was possible for his species. "What do you mean the agents were poisoned? Agent X, have you lost your mind?"

"That's a distinct possibility the way that things are going." X grumbled. "Take a look for yourself." He hit a few buttons to swing the communications hook-up and give Lyndon a few of the room and the collapsed agents.

Lyndon was quiet after seeing the scene, yet another thing that X didn't think was possible. "Are…." Lyndon shook his head, not knowing what to ask. "Fatalities?"

"None so far, and if my cousin hurries up and gets here, hopefully there won't be any." X said. "But at the moment there's nothing we can do about what's going on outside. We're barely managing the situation in here. Where are you?"

"At my cousin's. What can I do?" Lyndon asked, the worry in his voice clear. All of the agents…. Sure, he gave the MIB a hard time, but he considered Zed one of his closest friends. "Should I…."

"Your cousin, the one who lives above his bowling alley, right?"

"And below his other bowling alley." Lyndon added. "If I can…."

"Stay right where you are for the moment." X said. "We don't need anyone else on the street if we can avoid it. Jeedangian peacekeepers are on the way with my cousin, but until they get here, the best we can do is to keep the innocent aliens out of the way." Something suddenly occurred to him. "If you want to help, I have a list of resident aliens we still need to notify to lock themselves in there houses."

"Send it. Not like anyone's going to be coming in to bowl today. My cousin can help make calls." Lyndon said. "Is something beeping?"

"Another ship? Could you do something about the tourists while you're at it?" X grumbled as he hit a button, so he could issue another warning about why landing wasn't a good idea. When he saw the screen, he let out a sigh. His cousin, not a captain who would undoubtedly try to argue. "What took you so long?"

"Chief Zeredon actually insisted we obey a few interstellar traffic laws." Zara said with a roll of her big eyes. "How are the humans?"

"Alive. I had to get a human doctor, and you're telling Zed it was your idea too." X told her. At least she was finally here. Surely with more help here things could be fixed quickly.

"A doctor. Having a doctor there's good." Aileen was in another area of the ship but Zara wasn't taking any chances on her hearing and figuring out how bad things had to be for X to have brought a human doctor in. "We'll land in five minutes, with plenty of help."

"With this many people sick, you better have plenty of help." X muttered as he closed the call and started for the shuttlebay. The second she was off the ship, he was dragging Zara in to help with Kay. Even with all Elle's father was doing, he didn't like the look of the human.

"X?" Zara called as the ramp slid down, letting her step off the ship.

"Finally. This way." X hurried up and caught Zara's arm, almost jerking her off her feet as he pulled her the rest of the way down the ramp and towards the main room of headquarters. Zara didn't object, though, just waved for the other Jeedangian nurses and medics to follow.

"Agent X?" Aileen somehow kept pace with the larger aliens as they moved down the hallway. "How are the agents?" She wanted to ask about Kay, but she couldn't bring herself to. If she was too late, if he was gone….

"They're alive. That's something." X said as they stepped in to the room. He didn't stop tugging on his cousin, but continued pulling her in Kay's direction. "Zara…."

"Kay?" Aileen whispered, stopping short at the sight of him, tears starting to prick at her eyes. After a moment, she shook her head, ordering any panic firmly away. Alive, he was alive and…. "Wait." She moved around the Jeedangian and dropped to the floor beside Kay, reaching out and taking his hand, her tendrils curling around his fingers. "Kay?" What she had suspected before, that he wasn't as deeply unconscious as the humans suspected, she felt was confirmed as his ice cold hand twitched slightly in response to her touch.

Her free hand moved, gently stroking his face, brushing his hair back a bit. "It's alright." She told him, leaning down close to his ear to make sure he heard her. "I'm right here and the other agents are going to be fine. They're going to be fine, and you're going to be fine too. I'm here now. I'll take care of everything, I promise. You've done your job. So you just rest and focus on getting well. Everything's going to be fine. Just rest." She stroked his fingers and his forehead lightly as she talked, hoping the touch would help as much as he words.

"I don't know what you're doing." George said as he carefully moved around Aileen to check Kay's vital signs. "But whatever it is, it's working." Even with all he had done, he honestly gave the man he was treating less than a fifty/fifty chance, but now, somehow, he was starting to stabilize.

Aileen nodded, but kept her focus on Kay. "It's alright." She told him again. "Everything's going to be fine, I promise. I'm right here. I'm going to take care of everything. You don't have to fight anymore. Everything's going to be fine. Just rest and let me take care of you.


End file.
